Tangerine Dreams

The End of the Rainbow

2010-08-16T10:02:00.001+01:00

Australia is a pretty big country. The following photo should illustrate this to some degree.

With my bike fully serviced and all niggling things fixed, which included having to purchase a flywheel puller and remove half the engine to replace the worn starter clutch, I was finally ready to leave Darwin.

Fed up with constantly replacing your leaking fork seals? Why not create a couple of seal savers out of stubby holders and socks? Fosters... Those who drink Australian, think Australian.

Tim and Dale rode with me to Litchfield National Park to show me some of the best sights. Tim was especially keen to show me what the dirt roads had in offer for me and took me down a corrugated road to get a taster. I had always visualised corrugations as... well, I hadn't really, but they are exactly what they sound like. It's like the entire dirt road has been modelled on a piece of currugated Iron. The trick to treating them is to ride fast, the idea being that the faster you go, the wheels should just skip over them rather than giving you an EXTREMELY bumpy ride. The problem with this is that the road is also usually very sandy, thus it can be quite un-nerving riding at 90kph whilst sliding around and being shaken to death... the only solution? Go faster, quite the opposite of what your already half scared brain wants you to do.

Corrugations.

In Litchfield we had a splash in a couple of watering holes whilst I kept a keen look out for anything with a long tail, teech and scales. Most popular places have croc traps and are regularly patrolled to keep reptile free. John and Donna, a couple of Dale's relations met up with us in the park and offered to let me camp behind their caravan and generously fed be a fantastic pork chop meal. The older caravaning folk who seem to be everywhere during the 'dry' season up north are known fondly as 'Grey Nomads' and their sympathy and compassion for a young lone motorcyclist was overwhelming, several times I have been offered meals when turning up next to their well stocked vans.

The next day I headed South towards Katherine. I took the old highway which was more twisty than the new one and here encountered my first Wallaby. He bounced across the road in front of me as I was riding at around 80. I had been warned about their suicidal tendancies but there is often very little room to avoid them, as the second one I saw had discovered to his detriment.

I used the highway to get a rough idea as to my fuel consumption and potential range for when I would be crossing more extreme distances. After 400km my fuel warning light came on, so I switched to reserve. The next fuel station was about 50km ahead, easily done. After 45km my engine died and I drifted to a halt at the roadside. The sign for the next fuel station was 100m infront of me. 5km to go. Bugger. I hopped off the bike thinking what an idiot I was having run out of fuel on only the second day on a comparatively busy road compared to other places in Australia. Whilst contemplating whether I could face the shame of flagging down a passing car I decided to check whether all my fuel taps were open. Typically they weren't, I had forgotten to open the balancer pipe between the two fuel tank halves, and thus still had a good deal of petrol left. Still 450km on not quite a full tank of fuel was rather pleasing, meaning that I should easily have a range of 500km+.

I stopped at Katherine Gorge for a quick swim in the river. After diving in I thought the water looked rather murky so promptly removed myself and instead basked whilst other travellers cooled themselves in the water. I eyed a croc trap on the other side of the river suspiciously.

At the campsite I met a guy from the South who is on his second ride around Australia on his KTM 640. The next morning he informed me that the river was now closed to swimmers and kayakers. They had found a 4m reptile in one of the traps late last night.

Back on the highway the next day I settled at a steady speed of 80kph for maximum fuel economy and listened to 80's power balads on my iPod. Road trains overtook me at 100kph+ leaving me screaming into my helmet and gripping on for dear life whilst being buffeted by the turbulence. At lunchtime I pulled up at a rest site to eat a tin of baked beans and was immediately offered steak and sausages by another good natured couple of 'Grey Nomads'. It's fantastic to be able to have conversations with people about absolutely everything, since the conversation can take in fully fluent English, rather than Pigeon talk and hand waving. I've learnt so much more about Australian history and politics than compared to other countries just by talking to people rather than reading the 'Lying Planet'.

At a roadhouse I noticed a map indicating a limestone gorge campground in the nearby Gregory National Park. With another hour and a half of sunlight left I decided to push on and camp somewhere interesting. I blasted down a 50km dirt road as the sun was setting, then found my intended campsite closed due to perpetual flooding in the rainy season - during the wet season it's not uncommon for 1m of rain to fall in 8 hours. Many roads become impassable and there are lots of signs for floodways on the highways, often accompanied by depth metres, the highest I saw was 6m!
I rode another 20km down the track to another campsite, deep in the park - practically the middle of nowhere. Myself and another couple in a 4x4 were the only ones there. A donation of $3 was asked for for using campsites amenties which included a toilet and supply of water from a butt. There are also often free campsites on the highway where weary travellers caught short between towns at sunset can kip for the night - driving during darkness is plain suicide. At night animals are drawn to the road because of the heat it has conserved during the day. I've heard tales of lucky escapes when 4x4's have hit animals at speed, practically writing off their vehicles. Occasionally you see a burnt out wreck at the side of the road.

In the outback flies are a constant nuisance. As soon as you stop they find you and crawl into your mouth, eyes and ears. It's impossible to keep them away, although all they seem to do is just want to sit on your back and shoulders. One guy I met was practically wearing a fly jacket after a walk in the bush!

The next morning I visited a, now closed, homestead (cattle ranch) for a quick gander which told the tale of life on the ranch as well as a horifying tale from when the river rose extremely high during the wet season leaving a woman clinging toa tree all night waiting for the waters to subside.

I rode onwards towards Lake Argyle, the largest fresh water body in Oz - about 160km across and featuring a massive man made dam made entirely of earth. It irrigates a stupid amount of area in the North of Australia. When they designed and built the dam in the 60's, they expected the reservoir to fill within 4 years, it took 4 months. Nature does not dawdle around here and works in extremes.

I camped that night at a campsite in Kunnunara and met a biker who had just ridden the Gibb River Road through the Kimberlies. The, mainly sand and gravel, road runs for 800km through the Kimberly region of North Western Australia. It was the first place an Australian I met elsewhere on ym travels suggested I should go. You could spend an eternity going round in circles in Oz visiting everything that people suggest you visit. Sadly I don't have the time or money for that so there are undoubtely lots of interesting things I'm missing. The Gibb road was to be a test of my riding skills and the bike with a potential distance between fuel stations of 400km.

I bought supplies the next morning - tinned food, pasta and rice is pretty much all I can carry and set off. The corrugations began as I expected so I skipped over them at around 80-100kph. My first stop was a 5 start wilderness reserve called El Questro where I took onboard fuel after negotiating a rather deep, rocky and subsequently wet river crossing. The water sprayed up over my bike and I emerged on the other side absolutely soaked.

Further down the road I came across the Pentecost river crossing. I jumped off the bike to take stock and await a 4x4 to test the water for me. A couple of guys from Perth in their 4x4 turned up, inspected the water, concluded that there were probably crocs in there, then went for a swim anyway. a 4x4 coming from the opposite direction told me how deep it was, maybe 20-30cm so I rode in leaving the lunatics to their swim.

Wondering where the crocs are...

Once across I popped into the Home Valley homestead and campsite and immediately met up with another few friends of Tim and Dale who I also knew were doing the Gibb River Rd in their 4x4's. That night they demonstrated how to cook a pork joint roast dinner on a campfire, a true outback feast. I hung my hammock between a couple of trees and pondered how great it was to ride all these hardcore offroad tracks through desolate terrain before turning up at a campsite for the night, getting a beer at the bar and jumping in the pool to relax.

How to cook a roast on a camp fire.

The next day as I was blasting down the corrugated track at 100kph, even managing 130kph at one stage, I spotted several cars pulled over up ahead and was waved over. A 4x4 had collided with a couple of French cyclists after loosing control on a patch of sandy road. Everyone stopped to help and before long there were 2 doctors, a nurse and a pharmacist present to tend to the woman who had a suspected fractured or dislocated shoulder and concussion. The Australian Flying Doctor service was contacted via satellite phone and the decision was taken to move the patient via road to the nearest ranch and fly them out from there.

Accident in the middle of nowhere.

That evening I moved off the main road onto some smaller tracks to make camp for the night. I built a fire and tried to dry off my socks which were soaked from a previous crossing. A large brown spider with gargantuan black fangs then decided to explore my socks. I decided to take a photo of what I presumed was a poisonous arachnid. Whilst doing so my socks then caught fire. As I was extinguishing my clothes the spider then decided to turn his attention to me, so I ushered him into the fire.

The moment my sock ignited.

A hardcore schoolbus.

After a nervous nights sleep, keeping an eye out for other poisonous critters, I completed the last few hundred kilometres of dirt making a total distance of 600km offroad with 360km between fuel stops. The last 100km to Derby were some of the straightest and most boring roads I've ever ridden on. The boredom was only broken by a massive flat grassland stretching to the horizon where I watched a helicopter mustering cattle in the distance.

I visited a prison tree, where Aboriginal slaves were kept whilst being marched to the coast to assist with pearl farming. At a roadhouse where I camped that night, a guy I started chatting to mentioned the possibility of working on the ranches assisting mustering using offroad bikes - I decided to perform some enquiries once I reached Broome, which I reached the next day after just missing a Wallaby which jumped out infront of my bike whilst I was doing 90kph. I tapped my front brake just in time and missed him by inches.

I rang a couple of ranches but most had completed their mustering already, I then decided to hang around in Broome for a couple of days. I met one of the cyclists who had been involved in the accident a few days previously who told me that his wife had a few broken ribs but was otherwise fine.

I met a couple of other bikers in Broome, who had ridden across several deserts from the South Eastern corner of Oz to the North West. They also had a 4x4 support vehicle carrying a couple of hundred of litres of fuel and water as well as all the luggage, camping supplies and spares. That's the way to ride across deserts. It made me double think my plan to ride across the centre. I came to the conclusion that rather than riding down to Perth, another 2000+km then across the Nularboor - a good couple of thousand km of nothingness which would be along the South coast with a potential headwind and bad winter weather directly off the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. Instead I had been toying with the idea of double backing to the Stuart Highway and heading straight down the middle of the country on a beeline for Sydney, since I was fast using up my savings with the high cost of living in Australia. I could also have a look at trying to cut a shortcut through the desert to Alice Springs, down the Tanami or Duncan Highways.

Thats the way to do it!

And these go on the back!

Australia is a country where you can drive silly distances to see amusing shaped rocks... here are some...

There are many creeks criss-crossing Australia. During the dry season they are mostly empty, however the roads still have permanent bridges over them. On the highway I tried to imagine how creeks with names such as Dead Horse Creek, Sandy Creek, Deep Creek Cheese Tin Creek and Pint Pot Creek got their names from rather unimaginative early explorers.

One of the towns I stopped in for fuel had a surreal setting. A storm was brewing on the plains whilst several drunk Aboriginal people staggared around like zombies shouting at each other. To complete the setting, wild west music was playing from the speakers on the forecourt.

My air filter was a little bit dirty.

Signs at the entrances to both the Tanami and Duncan Roads declared that both roads were closed due to rain in the centre of the country a week earlier, thus I was forced to double back almost all the way to Katherine before re-joining the Stuart Highway and heading South, through the 'Red Centre', which following the recent unseasonal rain, was actually rather green.

I nipped down the Buntine and Buchanan and managed to survive riding through a surprising swarm of locusts. Since it was a single track, I had to vacate the road pretty smartish once I saw a road train barrelling towards me at 100kph. This was for both his and my safety. Road trains are so large it takes them a long time to stop, if they can be bothered. Kangaroos often discover this to their detriment.

I arrived in Barrow creek a few days later where I camped behind the roadhouse. The temperature at night was beginning to drop below freezing so I took the oportunity to spend a good half hour in a hot shower. There was also a strong headwind from the South East during the day, meaning that I was riding into a freezing headwind for most of the day.

Barrow creek was an interesting place to spend the night. The pub/petrol station/convenience store was staffed by two guys and after one of the other locals, who worked on a cattle ranch, had left, I was the only person in the bar. I spent the time constantly pestering as to understand the rules of Australian Rules Football, AFL. I think I've got it sussed now.

Night in the outback is an incredible place to look up.

The Stuart Highway. To simulate my experience on this road, go and sit in your fridge whilst staring at this photo for a couple of house and having a fan blow in your face. About lunchtime you can get out of the fridge.

My bike in front of yet another landmark, a marker for the Tropic of Capricorn.

The next day I passed through Alice Springs, the largest town for over a thousand kilometres, which appeared to mainly be filled with shops to cater for all outback community requirements. I considered stopping to get a new rear tyre which was looking rather tired but instead decided to push on to Erdlunda which marked the turn off to Uluru, Ayers Rock, where I would make a 500km detour to have a gander at another oddly shaped rock.

Another Big Rock.

In the Northern Territory there were no speed limits until a couple of years previously. With no speed limits the death toll on the roads was around 15 per year, with the advent of limits this soared to 87 per year! This is due to the time required to get between towns now, where it would previously have taken only a couple of hours to travel from one town to another at 200kph+, it now takes twice as long at 130kph and drivers are simply falling asleep. To combat this, free coffee is now offered for all drivers at petrol stations.

Heading South again from Ayers Rock, I soon reached Coober Pedy after narrowly avoiding hitting a Dingo in the road and presumably permanently crippling a small bird I hit. A brown ball of feathers drifted past my visor seemingly in slow motion.

Coober Pedy is a mining town which provides up to 80% of the worlds opals and in summer sees soaring temperatures of over 40 degrees C with subzero temperatures at night in winter. In order to combat this wild variation in temperature, most buildings are underground. I checked into an underground backpackers where the temperature is naturally maintained at around 20 degrees C, regardless of what the weather does ‘upstairs’.

The dorm, 'Flintstone style'.

I decided to hang around for a day since I had been on the road for a week already. Things to see included a spaceship and nothing.

A spaceship.

Nothing Here.

Or Here.

How to find Opals.

Heading South again and the landscape changed rather dramatically as I crossed the Woomera Range, where the British conducted their nuclear tests in the 60’s. On a similar not and to give you an idea of how big Australia is, I read somewhere that there is evidence of a nuclear device being detonated somewhere in Australia without anyone noticing.

Upon reaching Port Augusta I took a left turn towards Sydney, crossed the Flinders range and immediately entered sheep country. A stupidly long fence, known as the ‘Dog Fence’ runs across Australia to prevent the wild Dingos from the North from getting their teeth on the sheep in the South.

When I arrived in Broken Hill, my tyre looked as though it was on its last legs. I met quite a few other bikers who were heading to a nearby bike rally which I considered going to. I would have required a new tyre to get across the dirt and mud roads to the event and after contemplating whether I would rather spend my weekend in Sydney or in a field with a load of drunk old men on bikes, decided to head to Sydney.

It was now a race against mechanical breakdown. The Final Countdown was playing on my iPod. My engine was streaming oil, my rear tyre was practically bald and my chain and sprockets had definitely seen better days. I stayed in Dubbo for my final night before getting to Sydney in a reasonably expensive motel. Conveniently a KTM dealer was located next door. Upon a routine inspection of my bike, I discovered that my rear tyre really would not make the final run of 400km. The thread was actually starting to show because of all the high speed highway riding I’d done. The next morning I set a new record of 50 minutes for manually changing the tyre since no mechanics were in on Saturday morning.

Not quite roadworthy anymore.

The final ride to Sydney passed through the Blue Mountains. It was pretty cold to put it mildly. The traffic became heavier and there was the constant threat of speed cameras, the first I had seen for quite a long time.

Finally my destination for the past year loomed into view. My plan was to find my way through the urban jungle to the Opera House where I could celebrate my achievement by taking yet another photo of my bike in front of another tourist attraction.

I had imagined this moment for over the past year. I expected there to be tears and emotion. I could imagine people congratulating me on an epic achievement. Instead I had to beg the security guard to let me park my bike for 5 minutes whilst I took a quick photo then vacated the area. No-body noticed me and I shed no tears. It was just another days ride.

Mission accomplished.

That'll do Pig, that'll do

2010-08-15T03:19:00.000+01:00

Now What?

2010-07-22T07:26:00.000+01:00

With our bikes in a container, we had no reason to stick aroung in Dili, so flew out to Darwin the next day.

After a short 61 minute exactly flight, the Australian coastline loomed in front of us, flat and seemingly uninhabited. At customs Roel was interviewed out of curiosity since not many large Dutchmen arrive onto Australian soil from Timor L'Este.

We collected our luggage and proceeded to customs where I declared my sheepskin, tent and boots and after a quick cursory glance to ensure there was no mud of seeds inside we were free to go.

We stepped out into the airport terminal lounge and came to a halt after a couple of metres.

We gave each other a confused look.... 'Now what?...' I asked.

Having made it so far with all my limbs still attached I was rather amazed that I was here. This was one of the first moments on the trip when I was actually unsure of what to do and where to go, having decided that the 'Lying Planet' has had it's day of being my guide.

I had the details of Zephyr, an Ozzie motorcylcist who generously shares his house with travellers so we jumped in a taxi, the driver of which knew exactly where to go without any explanation or wildly gesticulating hand gestures, and headed into Darwin's suburbs.

Zephyr's house was like a dream come true. We set our tents up in the garden and headed straight for the pool.

That evening the people of Darwin hosted a big party with fireworks in honour of our arrival. Actually it was to celebrate Territory day but it didn't stop us from feeling special anyway.

Once again culture shock took hold everytime I wandered around shopping malls. Things didn't seem real. I had clearly spent too long in Asia. The massive variety of food was overwhelming, such that I never had any idea what to buy. Being bikeless, public transport took some getting used to. In Asia a bemo - small van crammed full of people, would pass by every 5 minutes for you to jump aboard and hang from the open door. Here, we had to wait at bus stops for the irregular scheduled bus which was innevitably late, then buy a ticket. It all felt very silly.

The bikes should have arrived a couple of days later, they didn't.

In exchange for staying at Zephyr's, Roel and I performed some household tasks such as cleaning the pool, tidying the garden, digging a vegetable patch and I spent a couple of days repairing a broken sofa which I'm rather proud of.

Darwin is described as being 20 years behind the rest of Australia by the locals. It seems there are a lot of misfits from the rest of Oz who end up here due to the good pay as a consequence of the relative remoteness. There are a lot of Aboriginal people when compared to other cities in Australia too. Without going into the politics this creates a somewhat culturally diverse if strained society due to the hundreds of years of persecution and segregation. Deep wounds take a long time to heal.

Darwin is a fantastic place that I wouldn't mind living in, although the temperature in the current 'dry season' doesn't rise much above 34 degrees C, in the wet season the humidity increases massively, hence it is a very seasonal area for workers, festivals and holiday makers with everyone heading back South in 'Summer'.

Eventually we were informed that the bikes were here. It then took another 4 days for the container they were in to be unloaded, cleaned and inspected. We then made an appointment with the quarantine inpectors to look at our 7 days worth of cleaning handiwork. For the privelage we had to pay $150AUD and wait another 2 days.

Finally we could get to our beasts. The inspection lasted all of 5 minutes and we were cleared to leave after the computer had been informed of the decision and the relative paperwork printed out. Whilst we waited we were locked in the quarantine area of the port for 2 hours and had to get a lady to had us water through the gates before someone eventually remembered we were there and came to unlock us.

Roel's paperwork was done in 5 minutes. Typically mine was problematic since someone at customs had clicked the wrong button on their computer meaning that the computer refused to clear me. After a frantic phone call to head office in Sydney and another hour long wait I was free.

I then set about getting my bike serviced and prepared for the desert. A new pair of tyres and several spares were orderred and eventually fitted after a frantic search for tools and workshops where I could hide in the corner and cause a mess. Tim, a UK biker now living in Oz who had ridden to India, kindly lent me the use of his garage in which I could fix all the niggling little things that needed doing. I won't bore you with everything that needed tinkering with.

Anyway I'm now ready to leave for the desert, my plan is to ride some of the long dirt roads that criss cross Australia, heading West first of all towards the Kimberlies then South towards Perth and across from Kalgoorlie to Uluru across the Great Sandy desert which will may require aditional fuel as there is the potential of a 600km stretch between stations. I've rigged up some collapsable water bladders to the side of my bike and generally gone a bit nuts with my credit card to ensure that I don't end up stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I've not attached any pictures because to be honest, I haven't taken many, apart from a wedding I assisted Zephyr photograph, plus taking photographs of suburban towns seems a bit pointless. I'm sure I'll make up for it.

The desert awaits...

Old Entry Updates

2010-07-13T02:41:00.000+01:00

I've had a fair bit of time whilst waiting here in Darwin for my bike, there are loads of things to do (if you have money) and the people are extremely friendly. It seems there is always some sort of festival, market, party or social event taking place but I'll talk about that in a later update.

Anyway I've updated all my old entries with photos integrated as part of the text, so if you fancy reading over some of my old adventure anecdotes they now have photos which should highlight what exactly I was up to. Enjoy.

A Dog's Dinner and the Final Hurdle

2010-06-30T11:49:00.000+01:00

So we had arrived in Kupang. Indonesia was almost at an end. After finding somewhere to stay we hit the night market for some fresh grilled fish. Despite admiring the beauty of the fish whilst diving, Roel and I shared a Coral Cod which we picked ourselves. It was so good that we decided to stay another day, just so that we could go to the market the next night to try some more fish - this time we had Oriental Sweetlips. We spent the next day wandering round the town then tried to get a bus back to the hostel which took us somewhere and left us, lost, so that we had to walk back.

Sabine's bike didn't seem to like the heat.

Locals here carry live chickens on the back of their motorbikes adding to the cacophany of things it's possible to carry around on a 125. Thus far I've seen 6 single mattresses, families of 6, pigs and every household appliance imaginable. Honda CG125, the family utility vehicle powering the world.

Sabine, Roel and I set off the 300km to the border. We made it after a hectic ride where we only stopped so that Sabine could photograph small children. The adults laughed when the children started to cry, then emerged out of their homes carrying more small human offerings. Sabine was ecstatic.

Another one of Sabine's victims.

The road my GPS took us down turned into a very windy dirt road. It showed as a shortcut on Roel's map and the locals kept pointing us onwards. I was beginning to thing that the Indonesian's must really have hated the Timorese.

The border was the usual border affair, but pretty straightforwards. Sabine wasn't happy when the guards found out she was German and couldn't stop talking about their World Cup Performance.

Blocking the road before leaving Indonesia. I think I've covered close to 7000km making may way over the archepelago.

The Timor side was a breeze since we had all finally been granted visa approvals and we had turned up 30 minutes before they wanted to go home. Very little paperwork was required, just turn up, show your approval letter, pay $30US and get a visa. They even knew how to stamp our Carnet's. My stash of bribery fags came in handy once again when an official asked if we were carrying any cigarettes.

Once over in late afternoon we finally ate breakfast, agreed that it would be silly to try to make the capital, Dili, and set off to find somewhere to camp. Just about every single person on the road waved to us. Despite Indonesia's bullying and harrasment in their turbulant past, they all looked really happy and actually seemed to be doing things to improve their country rather than just hanging round and letting Jakarta take care of it which seems to be the Indonesian way.

We found the perfect camping spot on a huge dried up riverbed covered in soft sand and found the highest piece of land, just in case there was rain in the hills and a flash flood appeared to give us an early morning bath. Someone had kindly already set fire to some driftwood, the smoke from which kept some of the mosquitos and sandflies away.

When it got dark Roel revealed a secret that he had been keeping from me for a long time. His giant metal box of goodies on the back of his bike contained a rather nice camera tripod, which he had never used. I immediately commandeered it and used it to take photos of the stars. I had previously tried a couple of times on clear nights, but the tripod made it a million times easier. Here are the results which I'm pretty chuffed with.

The Southern Cross, pointing the way South.

The next morning a couple of kids turned up to watch us in amazement as we rode across the river bed. I kept them amused by riding my bike into a big sandy hole. We took it easy, slowly winding our way through the dry landscape next to the coast. It's amazing how only 300km away by boat, Flores was much more humid and cooler, whereas Timor is hotter and dryer. Eventually, after Roel struggled with his continuous fuel problem and Sabine had a punture, we arrived in Dili. This was the end of the line for us. South East Asia had been traversed. Our next job would be finding how to get the bikes to Darwin, Australia.

At the guesthouse I re-affirmed my belief that I'm a pirate by making friends with a parrot who then wee'd on my laptop and stole my headphones then proceeded to follow me around everywhere. Sabine and I visited a supermarket filled with all sorts of western delights for the UN NGO's who roam the streets here in brand new giant Toyota trucks almost outnumbering local traffic. I almost had a heart attack at the sight of frozen pizzas, sirloin steaks, freshly cooked bread and bacon. I'm going to enjoy cooking in the kitchen here.

The locals got fed up of all the UN driving around as if they own the place not so long ago and came up with the cunning idea of using a can of black spraypaint to add a C and T to the UN on the side of every vehicle. The roads were a safer place for 2 weeks. Despite their mandate that they're here to help, we can't see much evidence of what the UN is actually doing. All that seems to have happened is that prices have risen on commodities as the locals take advantage of the fact that the UN just throws money away. I'm glad I'm not a tax payer contributing to the 'holiday' that the 'peacekeeping' force seem to be enjoying in a country ranked as 'dangerous' as Afghanistan and Iraq. When they eventually leave we think there will be big problems as locals earn a pitiful $4US a day, a beer costs about $2US. The US military is apparently actually doing some good by building schools and the like in the countryside. The UN doesn't apparently get much done because of all the buerocracy required in getting a truck for every single worker.

UN 'World Police'

War games; The US Navy has a presence here, which more than likely is because the Chinese will be conducting oil exploration here soon. hmmm...

Jesus keeps an eye on the proceedings in the bay.

Having organised shipping through Perkin's, an Australian shipping company in Darwin, who's agents in Dili, SDV, attempted to charge double what it should cost, we made use of the cleaning facilities at Troy Adams' company. Costing $50 per bike, and we would do the cleaning, Troy would cast his expert eye over our work to make sure that there was not a single piece of dirt, mud, sand or seed anywhere on the bike. Australian customs are fanatical about finding anything. For my bike which had been leaking oil for the past year, there was crap from 18 countries to get rid of.

The flag lowering ceremony, 6pm prompt, everyday at the Presidential palace, where coincidentally there is also free wifi to steal.

Pineapple headress bedecked guardsmen who lounge on the front steps all day then come to attention at 6.

There was a birthday party at the hostel. A little girl turned 5. Her parents bought her a very friendly white dog which followed her everywhere. She had called it 'Bintang', meaning star. The party would be in a couple of days.

I returned one evening, exhausted, sunburnt, dirty and hungry from cleaning my bike all day in the searing heat, made myself some food and looked forwards to going to bed. I was chastised for making food because everyone was going to the party, which I had forgotten about, and there would be food there. I wasn't particularly in the mood but was asigned someone who would wait whilst I finished eating, showered, then escort me across the road.

After I had showered, and was still covered completely in oil, I was ushered into a UN 4x4, beer in hand, by an Ethiopian who is paid almost twice as much as the Ethiopian President to program computers. I was under the impression that the party was just over the road. An American girl joined us and we raced off into the night to pick up someone for the party. 'I'm not supposed to give anyone lifts' the Ethiopian explained as he struggled to control the car whilst using his mobile phone and avoiding the scooters in the road.

We headed out towards the airport to find our fare. The streets were filled with people banging stones against lamp posts and lane dividers to make as much noise as possible. It felt like a riot was imminent and I began to doubt whether being in a UN vehicle was such a good idea. Eventually we found the people expecting a lift and headed back to the party, which WAS just over the road, within walking distance.

Food was served in a buffet style. The 'piece de la resistance' was a silver bowl filled with spicy meat. It was the little girls white dog 'Bintang'. I tried some, and to be honest, it tasted like rotten meat. It was chewey and sinewey and rather tasteless but what little taste there was just screamed 'dog'. How it is revered as a delicacy I don't know. Even stray dogs I passed scraps to wouldnt touch the stuff.

The birthday girl with her birthday dinner.

To add to the experience, all the Tourists present were then partnered with a local for the first dance. The young girl I was partnered with didn't seem too impressed by my dancing technique, which just saw us going slowly round in circles whilst I tried not to trip over my own feet or injure hers.

Back at the cleaning station, I was extremely chuffed to find a UN cap lying around, so promtly stole it - quite possibly the greatests souvenir from my travels. When I went to the shops, the Timorese gave 'the westerner wandering round in dirty oil stained clothes with a backwards turned UN cap on' some bemused looks.

Would you trust this man with your country?

After 5 days of cleaning, it was starting to take it's tole on my mental health. Everytime I looked at the bike I found more little bits of dirt which I attacked with a toothbrush and petrol. I started cleaning other inanimate objects too, chairs, tables, parked cars. It was getting silly but we were paranoid about not being allowed into Australia. It had better be worth it!

Dirty Bike

Cleaned Bike

To be honest, Australia scares me. Not because of the massive areas of desert which will require me to carry extra fuel and water. Not because of all the poisonous creatures there are and all manner of wonderful ways to die. No, it's because I will now have to play by the rules once again. No more running red lights because nobody understands what they mean. No more undertaking trucks by riding offroad through the dirt where it's safer. No more playing 'stupid' because I'm foreign and want my own way. I will need insurance, maybe an MOT for my bent, leaking, rusty bike.

Anyway enough moaning, when we had finished cleaning, we stuck the bikes on a flatbed - to stop them getting dirty again, then without strapping them down, clung to them as we raced through the streets of Dili to where we could stick them in the container.

Ok, I didn't actually drive this, there were too many knobs.

Quite possibly not the safest way to get 2 cleaned bikes around town.

Cleaned, strapped down and ready to go.... destination Darwin...

Yo Ho Ho and a Ferry full of Cow Shit!

2010-06-17T11:23:00.000+01:00

This is the story of my final adventures in Indonesia across the remaining islands of Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores to Timor...

Roel and I disembarked from the ferry. We had finally made it to Bali. In my head it was like the promised land of Indonesia. Good food, good roads and a relaxing place when compared to Java which as far as I could make out was one giant city.

The plan was to meet with the Irish nurses, Sally and Sarah, we had met on Pulau Weh. We thought Bali was a small island, it is compared to Sumatra, but we still had to ride close to 200km to get to Amed where they were staying. There was the promise of good food and good diving. We hoped to dive the Liberty, a US supply ship from WW2 which was just off a beach.

A very big pig which looked rather tasty.

I spent a week there, eating, diving, eating, snorkelling and eating. My stomach protested since it was not used to good food, especially salad which I ate twice daily. I was close to growing big floppy ears and pointy teeth.

The Indonesian word for foreigner is 'Bule' pronounced 'Bully'. I found this amusing and took to shouting 'BULLY!' whenever I heard the word mentioned by locals. They looked mainly confused. I don't think they would have understood 'Bullies Special Priiize!'

This Bully had a shave in an attempt to look like Hitler.

The diving was nice and relaxing but strange being on black volcanic sand. I was especially keen to see some pygmy sea-horses who live hidden away on seafans. Usually they only come in pairs and are rather elusive but one had at least 10 to be found.

The Liberty was fun too. We started at dawn in an attempt to avoid other divers but it soon became diver soup. My dive computer decided to reset itself at 30 metres which was helpful.

Sabine, a biker from Germany turned up one day. She has been on the road for 18 months with plans to attempt to get to Papua New Guinea before Australia. She seems to enjoy crashing into things.

When we were suffiently bored at doing not very much we headed to Kuta, the whorish capital of Bali. On the way the police stopped us. Sabine was all for keeping going but I stopped. They asked for our licenses and where we rented the bikes.

'England' I replied. They looked a bit confused then seemed dissappointed that our paperwork was in order. Their children probably won't get a new mobile phone for Christmas.

We were looking for a rumoured 'big bike' shop somewhere on the road to Kuta. It wasn't where Roel said it was, the 'Lying Dutchman', so Sabine turned back to where she was staying.

In Kuta I got trapped in a one way system. When I stopped to figure out where I was locals called me 'Boss' and tried to rent me scooters. Western tourists tried to ignore me like the persistant hawkers.

We found a hotel which tried to be posher than it was and was filled with Australian posers.

After our meal that night we went to a small shop to buy water. A small 10 year old boy approached me and held up something he was hoping to sell. He looked pitiful and kept rubbing his stomach saying he was hungry. I dismissed him and when he could see he was getting no cash from me he grabbed my crotch, grinned then ran away laughing. I was bemused.

I managed to buy some fiberglass. I knew exactly how to fix my boxes so spent an afternoon on the hotel balcony fumigating the room with resin fumes and massacaring one of their 'complimentary' towels. I also changed my oil in the carpark, nobody seemed to be very impressed but for a change I didn't make a huge mess. Roel and I had a go at trying to repair his fuel pump which had packed in. I successfully took it apart and cleaned out the gunk from inside. We then forgot how to put it back together.

As good as new, although the outside 'finishing' fiberglass later delaminated and fell off.

Rule No. 1 of taking things apart: Don't forget how to put them back together.

Kuta is sort of like the Costa Del Sol for Australians, full of persistant hawkers asking if I wanted a motorbike. I asked if they wanted a massage. There are good restaurants, if somewhat expensive and my stomach paid the price after we went Mexican. I felt a bit out of place.

I tried my hand at surfing. Having a giant ego I decided against lessons and just rented a board. My first mistake was to try to get out into the deeper water where the big boys were playing on some rather large waves. Several times the sky went dark as I was crushed by monstrous waves. I swallowed quite a bit of sea water and sand and was physically exhausted but did at least manage to stand up a couple of times. Surfing seems to be a lot of effort for very little reward.

When Sally and Sarah left for home I headed to Lombok accompanied by a friendly cold. Roel was awaiting his visa to be extended, something we thought would be easy in Bali with so many tourists but the buggers make it more complicated than it really is and charge extortionate prices for what I acomplished in one day in Aceh.

Before I left I met a couple of Swiss bikers also on their way to Oz who had met various other overlanders along the way so we swopped a few stories.

The ferry took 4 hours which I occupied by eating garlic peanuts. I managed to convince the ticket people that my bike was 400cc so that I would pay the cheaper less than 500cc price. With the engine having LC4 stamped on the side it wasn't too hard.

When directed where to park on the ferry I removed my possesions and locked the bike up. A man then told me to move it since it was too big, despite fitting snuggly into a corner. I complied and moved it to the back of the boat, where it was in the way of a truck, then locked it. He got angry with me for locking it up in case he needed to move it. I told that if he touched it, I would hurt him. I'm rather protective of my beast of burden.

I made my way around Lombok's coast accompanied by my friendly cold to Sengigi in search of rumoured cheap accomodation but couldn't find any. The 'Lying Planet' strikes again. I even managed to get my bike stuck down a small alleyway in my quest.

After dark I rode onwards and noticed a sign for the beach so decided to check it out. There was a small shack restaurant in a secluded field shaded by palm trees. After a meal I made my way to a quiet corner, put up my tent and went to sleep.

I set off slowly around the island. I was in no rush since I was still waiting for Roel to try to catch up in case he had success with his visa. Around every corner there was a perfect almost deserted white beach.

All the petrol stations were empty so I had to buy petrol from small shops selling groceries at the side of the road. They were a bit annoyed that I bought all their stock since my tank is 24 litres and the small local bikes are only 1 or 2.

I headed up into the hills towards a volcano called Rinjani or something and tried to ride up a track to the top but it was too small so turned round and rode back to the village. After stopping for lunch in cafe I found some cheap accomodation where I could nurse my cold. The owner kept asking if I wanted to stay and I repeated that I couldnt afford it so he dropped the price.

I spent the rest of the day recovering and avoiding locals. I never used to avoid people but I'm really fed up of being asked the same questions over and over and over and over again.

I took lots of drugs to get to sleep that night but strangely awoke at around 2am. I lay in bed for a minute before a deep gutteral rumbling eminated from the centre of the earth and the room shook for a couple of seconds. I lay still with my heart beating fast wondering what to do. Should I hide under a table? Under a doorframe? Run around outside naked screaming? In the end I went back to sleep but it was the first earthquake I have consiously experienced. I always managed to be asleep during the others so concluded that was the safest thing to do.

My cold developed into a double ear infection the next day, but unperturbed I set off to Sumbawa via a not so short-cut over a volcano in the middle of the island where quite a lot of locals had decided to live.

According to my 'Lying Planet' Sumbawa is the poorest of Indonesia's Islands. I was a bit perplexed at first since the roads were really good. Then things got worse and I was soon bouncing over some of the worst pot-holed roads I can remember being on. They were so bad that it was usually easier to ride in the dirt at the side of the road. Thankfully there was little traffic but a few times I did encounter strange political protests involving lots of scooter riders who took over the road until I forced my way through.

As it got dark that night I decided to find somewhere to camp. My first attempt was down a track towards to coast where there looked to be a field. It turned out to be a very muddy field so I skidded around a bit then headed back to the road.

My second attempt saw me waiting next to a small track for 10 minutes until the road was clear before I headed down when nobody was watching. I ended up in a small graveyard so decided against camping there despite the potential peace and quiet.

My third attempt was successful, sort of. I passed a small field right on the coast next to the road. It was a bit exposed but in the dark the sparse traffic would not be looking in my direction and I could hide behind a small bush.

I waited a few minutes and eventually a guy on a scooter pulled up and shone his headlights at me. I shone mine back at him to blind him. He went away.

I set up my tent, took some cold drugs, and went to sleep. A couple of times in the night curious locals with torches came in search of me so I shouted at them loudly in German. This upset them and they promptly left.

At dawn I could see that it was quite a nice campsite.

I departed on my way to the unpronouncable Hu'u. I think it might be like the noise an owl makes or maybe like a wolf whistle.

The place is apparently a surfing Mecca but I just planned to waste some time there awaiting Roel. There are big waves out there. VERY big waves. An experienced surfer asked me 'how long had I been surfing?' '3 Hours' I replied. He advised me not to continue my learning experience here.

Instead I attempted to rid myself of the disease that I have been incubating in a nice little log cabin. What first started out as a cold had by now become a double ear infection with a fantastically hearty chesty cough so I took it easy for a couple of days and after exhausting myself reading in the hammock I had aquired in Bali, decided to swim to the 'surfing observation post shack type thing' which was built out on the reef on the other side of the lagoon.

Doesn't look too far away?

I expected it to be a short 400ish metre swim, however after 10 minutes I noticed that the shack I was aiming for had moved rather abruptly to my right. I had gotten caught in the outgoing tide from the lagoon. I stayed calm and recalled my training. Having watched 'Finding Nemo', I sang to myself; 'Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.' So I kept swimming and after another 20 minutes, during which time I moved approximately 100 metres, finally made it. When I swam back to the beach I discovered it was actually shallow enough to walk, but swimming against the current was easier than staggering over the rocky bottom.

Rather than attempting any more water activities I relegated myself back to the hammock and joined the locals for a couple of hours by watching the only man in the village with a hedge trimmer cut a rather large lawn in fascination.

I was also granted a visa for East Timor, the final country prior to Australia.

I went a bit bezerk in taking photos of the sunset too.

After 3 days I was suitably bored enough and Roel was finally on the same island so I set off to the port of Sape to meet up with him. When he arrived we confirmed that the ferry would be departing for Flores the next morning at 8am so bought some supplies and headed up a nearby hill. In Indonesia it's usually best waiting until it gets dark before finding a campsite since usually a man and his goat will turn up on a scooter to stare, then go away and bring his mates. Amazingly, although a guy did wander past with his goat, we were left unmarauded to enjoy the scenery until the next morning when Crocodile Dundee turned up.

At the ferry port we met an amazed Tim from Wirral Advanced Motorcyclist's who was on his was back to Bali from visiting Komodo on his 125cc bike - I said I'd mention him. We were ushered onto the ferry and rather than joining the locals who sat on benches upstairs and were wailed at by some idiot with a guitar for 8 hours, we set up home next to the lorries on the car deck.

Our hammocks were put to good use and we tried to spot Komodo Dragons from 3km offshore using binoculars. We failed.

I, however, discovered that my hammock had a handy 'nutsack'.

We arrived on Flores just after dark, stopped in a cafe filled with 'Bully', ate and set off into the night to find somewhere to camp. After a few kilometers we found a suitable place next to a river and around 10pm, after setting up camp were disturbed by a 4x4 with four occupants. They excused themselves as they wandered past our tents to the river where they claimed to be 'looking for a stone'. After 5 minutes they must have found it because they left again after reversing their car into a tree.

In the morning Roel went for a wash in the river whilst I kept a look out for real or imagined crocodiles. We set off to traverse 'the island that had killed Carlos' suspension'. Carlos was stranded for a couple of weeks after he hit a pothole and snapped his suspension and we wondered whether we could guess which one it was. We think we found the one. A group of locals had gathered on either side, not to fill it in, but waiting for someone who didn't know it was there to damage their vehicle or themselves. I saw it early and decided to hit it with lots of power, lifting the front of the bike up a fraction and bouncing gracefully over, the locals looked disapointed.

We met some overlanders from Singapore on the last leg of their way home from riding around the world.

At a petrol station the locals were amazed that a 'Bully' knew how to check his oil level.

The road twisted and turned over the landscape. The road builders never knew what a straight line was. Buffalo grazed next to rice paddies whilst volcanoes loomed above and smoked like shifty teenagers. I think all I've done for the past couple of weeks is take photos of landscapes.

We camped on a football field in a small village next to the sea that night. In the morning an old lady looked shocked as Roel wandered around in his underpants. Her husband marched over looking angry, saw that Roal was 'a rather large Dutchman' and changed tack. The old lady came back for another look.

We made it to Ende and spent a couple of hours faffing around causing traffic chaos as crowds gathered to poke us and the bike to make sure we're real whilst we tried to ascertain where the ferry to Timor left from and when. Lots of people just seemed happy to name various days of the week. We didn't believe them so found the tourist information building occupied by a very enthusiastic young man who I didn't think had seen many tourists. He confirmed, after printing out lots of pieces of paper from his computer and giving us lots of brochures to places we will never go, that it was indeed on Monday at 8am.

We had 5 days to 'waste' so set off up a mountain to look at some pretty coloured lakes.

For two days we lounged in our hammocks whilst locals attempted us to convince us to go and see some weaving. We stayed in our hammocks reading. It was suggested we could visit some hot springs. This turned out to be a tiled bathing area filled with locals washing, shaving and cleaning their underpants. We didn't go in.

One morning at 4am we set off up to the top of the volcano, Kelimutu, to see the lakes. Apparently they change colour depending upon volcanic activity or maybe the leaves that fall in or maybe they're magic. No one really knows despite lots of official studies by incompetent Indonesian universities - The same universities who decided to study the effect of the 2004 Tsunami upon the coral reef on Pulau Weh 6 years after the event by dropping big blocks of concrete on the coral.

We staggered around in the pre-dawn darkeness driven forwards with stories from locals that the lakes hold the souls of the dead and that several people have died after either falling or jumping in.

Typically there were clouds at sunrise. They then cleared a bit so we could see the turqoise lake. They then obscured it again so we hung around shivering for a couple of hours hoping it might clear so we could see the view down the valley. It cleared up as we started the walk down. Roel and I agreed that we took too many photos.

Having gotten fed up of paying what we thought was a lot of money for rather rubbish food, we decided to spend an evening making pancakes. Roel decided he might make a business out of it.

After 4 days we rode back to Ende the day before the ferry was due in case it had been cancelled or delayed or moved somewhere. Indonesians have no idea what a schedule is and like Indians have 'elastic time'.

No ferry here.

It turned out that the ferry was cancelled. The ferry company had built a brand new harbour outside of town for their boats. They had built it in a place where there was no shelter, thus no boats could actually use it.

There was a chance of another ferry the next morning at 6am from Aimerem a town 120km away back from where we had come. Failing that it might go 2 days later or from another town, Larantuka, the day after that 300km in the opposite direction. We made the decision to ride through the night in the offchance that the ferry would be the next day. We arrived at midnight, and set up our tents in a carpark. It didn't go the next day so we made the carpark a temporary home for the next couple of days in true gypsy style. Sabine turned up too having ridden across the previous 2 islands non stop. Crazy girl.

We made quite a stir. Indonesians never seem to have a job to do. People hung around to watch us read in our hammocks all day. Roel found a broom and started to clean up. Doing my laundry was a big village spectacle as was repairing Roels fuel pump, which we had built wrong back in Bali. Ever since he had only been able to ride 80km before he needed more fuel.

More active than an Indonesian.

I made good friends with a crazy homeless guy who I called Jimmy. He wandered around all day mumbling to himself. The locals threw stones at him and shouted. When he came to sit next to me I had a conversation. He talked in tongues and gesticulated wildly with his hands. I had no idea what he said but he didn't speak Indonesian. I talked to him about the weather and everything else that came to mind whilst also gesticulating wildly. The locals watched awestruck. This Bully was talking to the madman and both seemed to understand each other. Jimmy occasionally wandered off shouting 'Jimmy' to himself.

Jimmy!

Jimmy shows off some rubbish which is now part of his personal collection.

The hobo, the legend, Jimmy.

When Sabine cooked some rice and Roel cooked some eggs, it drew a pretty big crowd. Even lying in my hammock was a noteworthy event. The locals had formed a new religion by putting a large screen and a projector in the nearby church to watch the World Cup.

Eventually our carpark became more and more full. We bough supplies for what we expeced to be around a 20 hour crossing to Kupang in West Timor. I went to buy tickets. Luckily I was wearing my back protector because the queue was practically a scrum. When I eventually elbowed my way to the front - we had been there for 3 days so felt we had more right than anyone else for a ticket, I was invited into the office whilst the ticket man deciphered what I wanted.

The first off the arriving ferry, Sabine thought we were getting onto Noah's Ark.

We had to force our way through a crowd being held back at the gate to get onto the boat where a man wanted 10,000 Rp (about 1USD) for us to use his ramp to get onboard - he wasn't charging anyone else. We pushed him out the way and caused a traffic jam whilst we built our own out of coiled ropes.

The idiots loading the boat had put no thought into anything. They loaded bags of rice first, then squeezed the trucks in between then let everyone else on. Our bikes were by no means in the ideal position and were close falling over several times.

The chaos of boarding.

Finally onboard.

The boat was filled with hundreds of people. There was not enough room in the stuffy passenger area so people slept anywhere and everywhere. You have to admire Indonesians for their versatility. The conditions were akin to how I would imagine a refugee or concentration camp. Animal crap still littered the deck from the previous voyage, pigs squealed, chickens were on the loose and babies cried.

100's of eyes followed everything we did. We put our hammocks up and people were amazed that we could make ourselves comfortable out of the crap on the floor. When I boiled 3 eggs for my tea, people stared, amazed at the white man's ability to cook. After I discovered that our ticket included a free meal, and being full I gave mine away.

I had a restless 4 hours sleep. The sea was reasonably rough and I was concerned that the family who had the clever idea of sleeping under my bike, not that there was much alternative, would be crushed to death if my bike toppled since we had not been able to put them somewhere where they could be strapped down.

Eventually, about 28 hours after departure we arrived in Kupang. The unloading of the boat was as organised as the loading. First about 100 extra people forced their way on to carry off the bags of rice, which by now had been soaked in shitty water and used as temporary beds. It took another good couple of hours before there was enough room for us to push Sabine so she could jumpstart her battery dead bike.

Finally we were in Timor. Only 400km from Dili in Timor L'Este where we can ship our bikes to Darwin, Australia. The only remaining problem is that Roel doesn't have a visa for Timor L'Este yet. Hopefully it will come within the next day or so.

I don't know when I'll get the chance to update next, probably Darwin. Till then...

(Thanks to Sabine for some of these photos)

Hooray for Carlos

2010-05-28T03:38:00.000+01:00

A Tale of Two Islands

2010-05-19T03:39:00.000+01:00

After being on Pulau Weh for close to 3 months both Roel and I were keen to make progress. I would set off a day before Roel and we would keep in touch aiming to meet somewhere along the way to Bali.

I left the island early one morning and there was only just enough room on the ferry for my bike.

The plan was to ride down the unchartered west coast of Northern Sumatra which had been previously devastated by the Tsunami. We expected bad roads and incredible scenery. Not long out of Banda Aceh a landslide had half blocked the road. As I passed through the boulders my bike died completely. No electrical power, nothing. I faffed around in the intense heat for 20 minutes trying to figure out what had gone wrong and then discovered that the negative terminal on the battery had simply become disconnected. I reattached it and set off again.

The road soon became bad. There was about 70km of dirt roads crisscrossing across the landscape with no road signs and inundated with cows and water buffalo. None of the towns or vilages I passed through were on my map so had to rely on a GPS bearing to head Southish. I took a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end on the wrong side of a river. Some local people becconed to me and the next thing I knew I was on a tiny canoe ferry on my way to the other side.

Later that day it started to rain. My map got wet and the ink ran so it didn't matter that the towns weren't on it any more.

Everytime I stopped for a quick break, locals would turn up in force to ask the same questions I've been asked for 10 months. Where are you from? Where are you going? What make? How many cc? How fast? How many km per litre? I might write the answers on the side of the bike or make leaflets in future.

I took shelter in a hut whilst it got dark. Soaked and cold I wasn't in the mood to camp so pushed on into the night through the torrential rain to find a hotel. Upon arrival I dripped my way across the lobby and was immediately handed a towel. I fell asleep almost instantly after having ridden close to 400km.

I was woken by the call to prayer at 5am and decided to set off. The road took me inland towards the mountains and Lake Toba, a large volcanic crater lake which I considered visiting and waiting for Roel. It was raining again so I decided to push on South rather than detour to the lake.

That evening I found a hotel in a cool mountain town where they had never seen tourists before. The girls all asked to add me on Facebook.

The Trans-Sumatran Highway, a mighty engineering accomplishment still in progress.

Local fisherman. All they seemed to catch was a used condom though.

I set off the next morning before dawn and accidentally stole the key to my room. Today would be a big day. I would finally be crossing the equator and entering the Southern Hemisphere after 9 months. I almost missed it and rode straight under the bridge where some random Indonesia bank welcomed me to the South. I turned round and headed back to take a photo and get harrased by a man trying to sell me a T-shirt. Upon inspection of my GPS to verify my location I found that the equator bridge was in the wrong place. Apparently the Dutch had built it in the wrong location. I blame Roel.

It rained again but I made it to an earthquake prone town called Bukkittingi where I found the Hotel Rajawali owned by a German called Ulrich. He noticed my GPS and asked whether I would like a map of Sumatra for it. He has spent the last 5 years creating a GPS map for Sumatra which has incredible detail upon it and wanted an evaluation. The map is far better than even the official Garmin maps I had previously used for Europe. He's happy to give a copy of the map to anyone who visits him in return for feedback. That evening I found a place which served steak sandwhiches. Since my illness on Pulau Weh I had all but lost my appetite but now with decent food I was able to regain some strength.

After 3 days of wet boots my feet didn't look too healthy either and I was still only half way across Sumatra.

The next day I passed some nice scenery and as usual had the hectic traffic to contend with. Busses and trucks lurked around every corner waiting to make an attempt on my life.

The consequences of Indonesian roads. I have no idea how the driver managed to tip the bus to the inside of the corner.

Road rules in Indonesia are similar to India, only the roads are better but still full of potholes. Undertaking scooters are everywhere and red lights are seemingly optional. The most dreaded foe are the night busses who flash their lights at you the overtake straight into oncoming traffic. My way with dealing with them is to slow right down whilst flashing my lights, honking my horn and giving them all manner of obsence hand gestures. Sometimes it works, other times I have to swerve into the gravel at the side of the road. Scooters with no lights on at night using their mobile phones for illumination can also take you suddenly by surprise.

Imagine driving across Europe on country roads full of potholes, busses, trucks, scooters, cows, goats and chicken. That's sort of the same scale as riding across Indonesia.

Road signs for Jakarta also started to appear, despite it being on the next island and well over 1000km away. To my mind that's like advertising Berlin from Birmingham.

It was pretty much the same story the next day only the roads got a bit better. As I rounded a corner a goat was stood politely waiting in the middle of the road. I clipped his back legs and he made a pathetic little bleating noise then staggerd off into the undergrowth whilst I swerved across the road. He probably ended up as someones supper that night.

I managed to ride over 600km that day and pushed on into the night to find a hotel. It was raining for a change but I had the cunning plan of using full beam to dazzle the other motorists out of my way. Sadly they all had the same idea.

Again the call to prayer awoke me the next morning. In Iran and Turkey the call was often hauntingly beautiful but I've had enough of religions. They all just seem to be competing to get you to give them money and make as much noise as possible at ungodly hours.

I finally made it to the port to get the ferry to Java at lunchtime. Incredibly Roel arrived 10 minutes later having taken a shortcut because he could read his map. I had crossed Sumatra, over 2000km, in a terrifying 6 days. Roel had done it in 5.

We boarded the ferry to Java, expecting it to take an hour since it's only a 30km crossing. It took two hours since it stopped halfway across for no reason whilst it started to rain. Our fist impression of Java was a wet one.

At a petrol station we asked how long to Bandung, the town we planned to get past. They said 10 hours. We thought we could make it in 5. It actually took us closer to 16 after we rode into the night to make progress in the holiday traffic as everyone left the cities and headed up a mountain. It was also raining for a change.

At a petrol station close to midnight we met some Indonesian bikers who helped us to find a field to camp in. When we awoke the next morning the locals told us we weren't allowed to camp there because it was in front of the Presidential Holiday Home. After a man brought us some pastry things for breakfast and another tried to sell us some Spongebob Squarepants baloons we set off and finally made it to Bandung.

Before facing the onslaught of the traffic we stopped for some food. As we were ordering we heard a mighty crash from behind. I turned to see an old man standing next to my bike on it's side looking sheepish. They have to touch everything just to make sure it's real. My brand new right pannier was smashed so I gave him lots of verbal abuse and he ran away. I fixed it with some good old gaffa tape.

I asked a policeman for directions after accidentally riding onto the toll road and he jumped on his bike and indicated for us to follow him. He rocketed through the solid traffic with his sirens blazing, sometimes driving directly into oncoming traffic whilst we struggled to keep up. It was some of the most insane riding I've ever managed to do.

Once again it rained and once again we rode into the night because we couldn't get used to the fact that it got dark at 5:30pm. Can you see a pattern emerging?

The roads became steeper and steeper as we rode into the highlands to Borobodur, a big Buddhist temple that was supposed to be impressive. Local people came out onto the steep flooded roads with lights to guide the trucks and try to prevent them from crashing into their houses. A few had failed to stay on the road.

We found a very posh looking hotel which had cheap prices for staying in a dormitory. There were 4 beds in our dorm and we were the only ones in it. Bargain.

We took the next morning off from the bikes to visit the temple. Local people pay about 1USD entry fee. We were expected to pay 15 because we're white and have ATM stamped on our forehead. I made lots of fuss as only a Northern Englishman can and kept trying to give them the local price. In the end we gave them nothing and left. I took a photo of what I could see of the temple from a distance. In Europe one would be branded rascist for charging foreigners more. The Indonesian tourist industry is already collapsing, I can see why.

The temple is over there. It looks nice.

Instead we visited a local Saturday morning football match. A man chanted and banged a drum whilst men with funny hats on fell over in the mud. It was quite amusing. Roel enjoyed the dutch colonial influence and bought a pancake.

Upon our return to the hotel we were interviewed by the local press. Keep your eyes peeled for the article in a local Indonesian newspaper near you!

We set off late and once again it rained as we rode into the night and finally camped in a field.

In the morning we were awoken by someone shouting on a megaphone from a temple nearby. As I loaded my bike I was unable to disengage the alarm. I thought this was because it was wet from the constant rain so covered the electrics in WD40. Nothing worked. I was crippled and had visions of having to put my bike onto a truck. I honestly felt like the trip was over as I had no idea where the tangle of wires went. In frustration I removed the alarm and cut all the wires. I had 16 wires, all black, that led off to various parts of the bike. I tried connecting them all together out of desperation and ended up short circuiting something and setting a wire on fire, burning my finger in the process.

I tried to calm down and think rationally. After two hours I had traced all the wires to where they came from and found that only two went to the starter motor relay. The rest were insignificant. When I connected them together, the bike fired up. The bane of my existence for the entire trip had finally been removed. No more crippled bike everytime I had an electrical fault and no more annoying beeping.

We eventually began the ride to Mt Bromo, a volcanic national park at 2000m+ altitude. The road up was covered in mist and I was optimistic about being able to see anything. Typically at the entrance to the park we were expected to pay double the local price. We kicked up a big fuss. Even Roel was angry.

'It's only $2.50' the woman in charge told us.

'Yeah' I replied, 'Which is ONLY twice as much as locals pay!. Do I have ATM written on my forehead? Do my clothes say sponsored by Mastercard? Have you ever heard of rascism?'

She had not surprisingly. I think we should introduce dual pricing in the UK for anyone not white. But 'no' I hear you cry, 'that would be rascist!' It doesn't seem to bother anyone in any of the South East Asian countries though.

We did pay eventually but they could see we weren't happy about having to pay to visit something which is completely natural and isn't even maintained by them. Not even the roads. I think travelling for so long is making me extremely cynical.

Bromo was worth it. I set off straight across the black sandy desert whilst Roel moaned about breaking his bike. We took lots of motorcycle magazine photos then rounded a corner and visited Scotland.

We asked some locals for the best way to get to Bali and they showed us a small, ill-maintained road that wound through the jungle as it descended. There was no entry booth so we now know how to sneak back in.

That evening we camped on a football field. A man on a scooter rode up to us, shouted something, seemed scared to approach then rode away. Roel expected him to bring the police back to move us on so we waited 15 minutes before setting up our tents. They didn't arrive so we went to sleep. An hour later I was awoken by bright lights and the sound of a diesel engine revving outside. People were talking loudly. I waited and listened. The police had turned up, carrying big guns, and were telling Roel that we had to go to the police station because it was dangerous here. He was dealing with them politely. I, however, stormed out of my tent in my underpants and shouted at them then went back into my tent and tried to get to sleep again. They left shortly afterwards. Roel thinks they were offended because we didn't take them up on their offer to go to the police station to sleep. I was offended because they had woken me up in the middle of the night and if it was dangerous, then now the entire town knew we were there.

In the morning 3 very dangerous young children came and curiously watched us pack our tents away. I was fearful for my life.

Another hour of riding in the dawn light saw us arrive at the ferry port to get to Bali. Men instantly tried to sell us sunglasses.

And so we made it to Bali, around 4000km from the most Northern tip of Sumatra. I in 9 days, Roel in 8. It must be some sort of recors. It had been exhausting both mentally and physically but we had both seen what we wanted to see. Once again we can both relax and maybe do some diving whilst figuring out how to get to Australia since East Timor has apparently changed the visa regulations which may make things tricky. Not far to go now.

Dreaming of Yorkshire Pudding

2010-05-06T12:37:00.001+01:00

One lunchtime I popped to the shops on my bike. I fell off. Nothing new there. I had to spend a couple of days out of the water whilst my wounds healed.

I finished my exams together with my obligatory map of a dive site. Previous DMT's had created some very artistic affairs...

An Artistic Masterpiece.

Seeing as I was no artist and had no GCSE's in Art I drew upon my learnings as a small child and promptly began to stick various household items to a piece of paper which were representative of features on the dive site. It took me days to complete my masterpiece. Some were impressed, some laughed and said it was stupid. The facts speak for themselves though. Divers have successfully been able to navigate themselves around the beach having been briefed about where to see the interesting fish in the Staghorn coral, represented by crushed noodles and glue. I rest my case.

All the greats signed their works of art.

The other DMT's were also out of the water for a bit. Jesse had contracted gangrene on his foot. Roel was suffering from Heat Exhaustion from being too big and too Dutch leaving Ira the resident doctor to care for us as only a Russian doctor can, rather unsympathetically. Luckily we had been joined by a couple of Irish nurses, Sally and Sarah, who became very excited given the opportunity to squeeze the puss from Jesse's foot and pick my scabs. They were also rather happy to inform me that because I had hiccups I may have severe internal bleeding and could keel over at any moment. I didn't thankfully. Conversations in the evening were typically filled with talk about all manner of disgusting things that the human body can do.

'You mean people can actually vomit poo?'

A couple of days later I was due to fly out to Malaysia to get a new visa. The Irish nurses had taken to stalking me and reminding me of my mortality so they came too.

At the airport we checked into the VIP lounge whilst we waited for our flight. Total cost, about £2.50 for an 'all you can eat and drink' buffet spread consisting of mainly strange spicy nut mixes which I interpreted as a challenge rather than an offer.

Posh VIP nuts.

Once satiated we made our way to the departure lounge. I bored the girls with nerdy plane facts. We then were herded onto a bus which we had to wait for 10 minutes to fill before it could make the 200m drive across the completely abandoned apron to our sole aircraft at the airport.

Plane Porn.

We stood around next to the plane in the heat for another couple of minutes whilst we waited to board. I inspected the aircraft with a keen eye for detail and observed that the port tyres looked a bit flat. An official looking man noticed us inspecting them so sidled over and gave them a quick kick whilst trying to look inconspicuous.

Once on board and comfortably in our seats, Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' played soothingly over the loudspeakers whilst we accelerated down the runway. There's nothing quite like budget air travel in South East Asia.

Those with a University 1st Class Honours Masters Degree in Aeronautical Engineering, like myself, will notice that this is a propeller. Very exciting stuff.

We did manage to land safely and uneventfully on Penang in Malaysia. Having become very tired of eating rice and noodles for the past few weeks we immediately paid a visit to McDonalds, where I can happily report that you can now get a Double Big Mac with twice the meat. The American Dream of Obesity is now closer than you thought.

Yay! Real Food!

Superdupersize me!

Penang involved getting back to grips with what it's like to live in a civilized place. It mainly involved drinking Guiness and eating steak. I successfully managed to get a 60 day visa for Indonesia and attempted to return to the island together with copious amounts of shopping including HP sauce, Heinz Baked Beans, Colmans English Mustard, Nuttella and Peanut butter. Sadly Malaysian customs weren't so keen for me to have any nice food in Indonesia and thus confiscated it all, apart for some reason for my black pepper.

I hope they choked on it.

Back in Banda Aceh customs there kicked up a fuss when they noticed I had two bottles of booze. Determined not to have yet more luxuries stolen from me for the second time in a day I glanced around and noticed another tourist behind me in line. 'One is for my friend' I said pointing at the random guy. They reluctantly let me through after checking him for contraband. He looked a bit confused as I grinned at him then followed him off into the crowd to complete the illusion.

One day after my return I fell ill again. This time the illness was more severe so I checked myself into a room with a fan for 3 days whilst I alternatively sweated, shivered and twitched away my fever which reached a rocketing 39.7 degrees Celcius according to the thermometer shoved into my armpit. Speculation was made as to whether it was Dengue, Malaria or just Flu. It was probably all of them.

Whilst hallucinating under the influence of various drugs I dreamt of food. Good food. Yorkshire pudding. Bacon. Sausages. Steak. Sausage Rolls. Pies. Salads. Pasta. Pizza. Food is a continuous topic of conversation amongst travelling folk. Especially here where the food is ok but very very boring after an extended amount of time. Fried or boiled rice and chicken or tomato pasta or chips and chicken. I have now lost the will to eat and every mealtime is a struggle to decide what to have. I have lost weight for the first time this trip. Hence we have made plans to leave. Saturday will be the day we finally attempt to cross Indonesia, heading as quickly as possible across Sumatra and Javas manic roads to Bali where there is rumoured to be decent food.

To celebrate our decision Mama Dog and Henry decided to kill a rather cute kitten in a tug of war match. The kitten lost. It was all rather horrifying. I've stopped talking to them.

My Dive Master Training is completed. For my final dive here we visited Sophie Rickmers Wreck. A 134m long cargo boat scuttled by her German captain in 1940 to prevent her falling in Dutch hands. She now sits at the bottom of a 70m deep bay. We free fell into the blue to a depth of 54 metres where the wreck loomed out of the depths. It was quite possibly the most incredible dive I've done. After spending 18minutes exploring we had to follow a strict decompression schedule and it took around 40 minutes to return to the surface. An amazing experience and a perfect ending to my time here.

It's time to hit the road again. I can't wait.

The Life Aquatica with Lumba Lumba

2010-04-17T07:56:00.000+01:00

Sorry for not updating for a while...

Last I wrote I had decided to lay down my helmet for a month to complete my Diver Master Training.

First up was a First Aid Course refresher, since the last I had done was about 10 years ago. I was able to perfct my skills on a few random indonesians who lay motionless around various parts of the dive shop one afternoon.

The Rescue Diver course could then be commenced. After learning about various ways to assist divers in differing degrees of distress my ultimate test came one afternoon.

'Roel is missing' A random unconcerned customer told me.

'Oh is he?' I replied, 'well we better start a search'.

After donning my diving gear I entered the water together with Leslie, my instructor. We commenced a search pattern. I kept using the compass wrong and Leslie kept getting stressed. (In my defence diving compasses are backwards!) I kept glancing at my dive computer, after 30 minutes we should abort the search. 19 minutes had already passed. Suddenly I spotted him, face down and unconsious, entangled in a rope. I freed him and took him to the surface where I gave rescue breaths and towed him towards the beach.

Suddenly my air tank grated against a rock. Bugger. The tide was going out and had exposed some coral. We had managed to get trapped on our backs like ladybirds. Roel wasn't happy. We had to abort the rescue whilst it was every diver for themselves.
I was eventually able to dump Roel onto the beach where I could commence CPR. A confused and rather startled Indonesia family watched with concern until Roel got fed up of being a dummy. Despite the slight hiccup, I had passed. My Dive Master Training, DMT, could start in earnest.

Roel with Laura, his bodged rescue dummy hobbit.

First up I needed a medical checkup, so I set off to the local hospital with Ira, another DMT. After getting a full once over from the doctor including bloodpressure, heart rate, breathing etc. and the all clear it was Ira's turn. He glanced her up and down whilst looking rather nervous about touching a rather curvacious woman and asked how she was feeling. 'Fine' she replied, so he signed her off as ok to dive too. The same doctor diagnosed a tourist with a gangrenous leg as 'having eaten too many eggs and noodles'. A couple of days later he added Ira on Facebook...

Secondly, I needed to look the part. I was supposed to be a professional and a role model who people would respect. My bierdy wierdy look would have to go.

Oh Dear!

No one mentioned what sort of proffessional I should look like and after watching some of the PADI instructional videos featuring corny American actors with an array of hair styles from an 80's fashion shoot, 10 minutes with a shaver resulted in this...

Oh Yeah!

I was encouraged to dive as often as possible, so went at every available opportunity until I developed Indonesian Man flu so I resorted to studying for my exams. I purchased some Tiger Balm, as seen on Indonesian TV, and proceeded to embalm myself. Since I had lost all sense of smell I could not tell how strong the stuff was. People refused to sit near me for a few days due to the overwhelming smell of mint. It didn't stop the spread of Dunk flu though, I was simply the first.

Studying hard.

Once my illness had worn off a little we had to do a timed 400m swim with points being awarded depending upon our times. So one morning about 8am we all waded off the beach. 100 metres had already been marked off along a buoy line so 4 lengths were required. It didn't look very far until we discovered a swarm of jellyfish about halfway. We had to cross through them 4 time. I then had to tread water for 15 minutes in their midst.

One dive in particularly memorable for me. A couple of holidaying Germans wanted to finish with a deep dive. I thought this would be about 40 metres - PADI's reccomended limit for a recreational diver. As we free fell into the blue Nitrogen narcosis, possibly the greatest drug in the world, took hold due to the increased pressure. At 40 metres my dive computer started going mental warning me that we were too deep. A fantastic feeling of peacefulness and tranquility descended upon me. At 54.6 metres we levelled off. I wanted to stay there forever. I almost thought that I had gills and didn't need the air that was quickly being depleted from my tank and who cared that my computer was now calculating that I had exceded the no-decompression limit and had to spend some time in decompression.

We slowly ascended and as the effect of the excess Nitrogen wore off I sobered up rather instantly. We were at 30 metres after 30 minutes dive time. I had half a tank of air left and needed to spend 20 minutes to allow the excess Nitrogen to be removed from my body before I could even think about surfacing. This was to minimise the risks of decompression sickness aka 'The Bends'. If anything had gone wrong with my kit I was so close yet so far away from the surface. To make things pleasently worse there was now a very strong current meaning that four of us had to cling to an inflated balloon, which had been wedged onto the ocean floor, to complete our decomression stop at 3 metres depth. When I finally surfaced I felt like I had almost been to the edge of the world. At about 62 metres depth air becomes toxic.

It was a great experience and I learnt a lot about decompression diving. At some point I hope to go to the deep wreck here sunk during the Second World War which is about the same depth.

Life on the surface is also rather vibrant. I have adopted 3 stray beach dogs and feed them regularly. We have Mama Dog, Henry - AKA Papa Dog, and the black sheep of the bunch, Crack Fox, who spends most of his day hiding in a swamp itching his scabby skin and, we suspect, taking drugs.

I also have a pet cat, Ginger Tom, who regularly visits my tent at stupid o'clock at night sometimes accompanied by wild boar or stray cows.

The other day I had a restless night in the tent after we met some locals who had just slain a beast on the beach. They had bashed a massive Pythons head in because it had been stealing chickens. They coiled it up on the sand where us tourists could prod and poke it and take photos. When moved, the muscles contracted because it had not been long dead. They tied it to a buoyline and left it to feed the fishes. The next morning it was still there because nothing could bite through it's tough leathery skin. Personally I was up for a BBQ.

Due to the lack of cash machines on the island, a couple of us organised a day trip on the ferry to the mainland to stock up on cash and other supplies which are impossible to get. I had run out of cash a couple of weeks and was quite happily adding all my meals to a tab at the resataurant next door. This was until I completed a page and they asked me to cough up. I tried to explain that I would have to leave the island to get some cash and they gave me very unpleasant looks everytime I had to order food. I think they might have spat in it, hence the trip to Banda Aceh was imperitive.

After getting the early ferry to the mainland we were rather hungry so popped into a cafe for some breakie. I spoke English in a loud slow voice whilst waving my arms around and pointing at some eggs and coffee. When the owner didn't understand me I repeated myself, even slower and even louder. Eventually he cottoned on and I sat down to await the grub.

A old man with no teeth on the table next to us kept pointing at us and cackling. The cafe owner had cracked the eggs into a cup and was now whisking the yolks with a power drill. He then poured the coffee into the egg cups. I jumped up and started flapping around, realised I wasn't getting anywhere then gave up. Together with the eggy coffee we got a glass of warm water each and some coco-nutty squidgy things covered in flies. I stuck with the coffee. It wasn't so bad... but my stomach did make some interesting noises and I couldn't walk too fast afterwards and was extremely cautious when I sneezed...

After breakfast we spent several hours wandering around attempting to find any cash machines that would accept out evil western cards. When we did find one we would empty it. The locals waiting in line behind us weren't very happy.

Triumphant, we returned to the island together with copious amounts of shopping. I amused myself on the slow ferry back by pouring water over the heads of Indonesians on the decks below who kept experimenting as to whether the fish would eat discarded plastic.

A few days after our return there was an earthquake at 5am one morning. It was a couple of hundred kilometres away about 50km under the seabed. None of us really noticed until the next morning when the news was filled with details. Apparently the beach was bombarded by a 1/2 metre high tsunami... maybe we were lucky this time.

Another day, another dive...

And so life continues... sleeping, eating, drinking and diving... my beer tab is starting to become rather excessive and could actually end up costing more than my diving course. Small old monkey men climb stupidly tall trees and cut down coconuts. One day I will have to get back onto the bike and head for Australia, but not quite yet...

Mimbi Mimbi Mu

2010-03-15T05:56:00.001Z

'Hello' I greeted a passing old lady.

'Hello, Andy is dead!' She replied.

'I've just been diving with Andy?' I pointed to the dive centre.

'No, from Germany, two weeks ago I think...'

'Oh, how sad'

I smiled and kept walking to the shops, not knowing who Andy was or indeed why this topic had even surfaced...

I've spent most of my time doing a couple of dives a day, seeing all sorts of interesting things in much a much more challenging environment than in Thailand. I've explored a tugboat at a depth of about 16 metres aboslutely teeming with life that has claimed the vessel as their own. On the same dive we visited some underwater hot springs, where hot sulphuric volcanic gas excapes from the sandy bottom and unfortunate boiled crabs litter the sea floor.

I almost ended my diving permanently whilst drift diving in a current when I was using the rocky bottom to slow myself. I grabbed a rock a few inches away from an unexploded bomb from the Second World War still equipped with its triggering device and most definately not defused...

One evening I went fishing with Mandy from the UK and Assim from the mainland. It was extremely serene bobbing in the sunset whilst the boatman smoked local 'Aceh Tobacco'. 'Wobbly and Wavey - Good Combination' he explained. We saw a turtle flapping about on the surface eating his dinner and as it got dark the phosphorescing plankton illuminated the line as it disappeared into the depths whilst the perfect night sky lay above us, unspoilt by any unnatural lights.

I was the only one who managed to catch any fish. The first I didn't know I had even caught, the second, the skipper had already predicted what colour it was as I was reeling it in. A small yellow wrasse that went to the skipper for his tea as per an old tradition or charter or something...

I have to credit the photos to Mandy since I was too busy trying to hook a monster.
When we returned ashore the local lads played guitar. La Bamba with the famous alternative lyrics 'You look like an Orangutan from Bukit Lawang' was the popular choice.

Since I had only managed to get a 30 day visa on arrival I headed to the local immigration office to get some information about extending. After a heated argument with the head honcho he was adamant that I could not extend and extremely uncaring about what I should do. I left rather annoyed and whilst searching for coconuts on an abandoned beach was approached by a local man, Yusop, who took me back to his house for some better coconuts and fresh fruit from his trees.

Later that day the immigration officer found me on the street and apologised saying that yes, there were new rules now in place and that I could extend. I was the first person who had enquired about the new laws and knew more than they did.

I popped along to the prophesied 'kilometre zero'. It is indeed the Northern most point of Indonesia accessible by road. I dicked about taking silly photos of myself and annoying the local monkey populous.

After I had finished my set number of dives I headed down to another beach to meet with Roel from Holland on his Africa Twin. He was doing his Dive Master Training with Lumba Lumba dive school and camping to keep the costs down. Since I had spent the day doing nothing I was pretty restless and started to make arrangements to head south as quickly as possible to extend my visa as late as possible.

I spent the day before my planned departure at Lumba Lumba meditating on the epic solo journey ahead. I had already purchased camping supplies and was mentally preparing myself. After 5 minutes in their newly washed hammock - It turns out that it's blue after washing, I had an epiphany. 'F*ck it' I exclaimed, 'I'll do my Dive Master Training'.

So I'll be here for another month at least, living in my tent to keep the costs down, doing what I enjoy, learning. I'll have to do a first aid course and a rescue diver course then will end up teaching and guiding other divers whilst I complete my training. At the end of the course I will become a professional with the letters DM after my name - I like adding letters to my name!

If there's one thing that I've learnt on the trip, it's that I love learning. That PhD opportunity back in the UK is still tempting... one day maybe.

And 'Mimbi Mimbi Mu?' is some of the little Bahasa Indonesia I have learnt, it means 'Your Dreams', 'Mimbi Mimbi Pu' means 'My Dreams'. I think it sounds like a character from a book by T.S. Elliot. It may even be a character from the Moomins...

Freak of Nature

2010-03-04T05:47:00.001Z

The Ferry from Malaysia to Indonesia took about 4 hours. On the other side I aquired a 30 day visa, extendable by another 30 days. I had previously attempted to get a 60 day visa from the Consulate in Georgetown but they weren't very helpful there, asking for an onward travel ticket from Indonesia - which I explained that I obviously did not have and could not get since I would be crossing the border from Timor to Timor Leste. They didn't care.

The customs officials seemed to delight in making me constantly remove all 4 pieces of baggage - helmet, boots, tankbag and ruchsack, for frisking. I had never felt so initially welcomed into a country...

Once I had exited immigration I was accosted by numerous taxi drivers. I shook them off but one persisted whilst I figured out how to get to Customs such that I could get the paperwork started for when my bike arrived the next day.

We agreed a price since it was a fair way to walk in the heat and he took me to the customs office where I could get my carnet stamped before the bike had even landed in Indonesia.

The taxi driver wanted even more money to take me to the main town, Medan, about 15km away. I argued with him since I was under the impression that we had agreed a price. I ended up just haggling him down.

He gave me his mobile number so I could call him the next day to get back to the port to recover my bike.

At the guesthouse I enquired about the price I had paid. It was 3x as much, despite haggling down, what I could pay there to go to the port the next day. I elected to do that instead.

Once I got to the agent at the port I had to pay for the bike to be released and wait for an hour whilst they unloaded the boat.

Typically the taxi driver from the previous day turned up, demanding why I hadn't called him. I explained that I wasn't in the habit of being ripped off twice. He demanded more money for some unexplainable reason - something to do with oil. I told him to get bent and walked off. I try not to form impressions of a country from the people I first meet but the Indonesians are not making it easy, always demanding money from me. A few people had told me that corruption is rife. Border towns seem to be like that though...

I got a lift on a scooter to the boat where I met the captain, a very friendly man for whom it was important that my bike arrived safely. Sure enough she was right where I had left her, unmolested. The crew were unloading bags of something from the opposite side of the hold via crane. As soon as they saw me they asked for cigarettes. I've gotten into the habit of carrying a pack of smokes around - good for pacifying policemen and in this case bribing dockworkers. Sure enough the next item that appeared dangling from a rope was my bike. I thanked everyone and headed off to try to get back to my guesthouse in Medan.

The main road to Medan was a toll road. I had no idea where the other road was nor the inclination to find it since I was not looking forwards to the traffic and the toll looked clear, so I ignored the guys who tried to stop me going on - surprise surprise bikes aren't allowed! At the other end I played the stupid lost tourist game and they pointed me in the right direction to the town centre, which I knew anyway. Stupid lost tourist is my favourite persona for getting away with cheeky things.

The next day I set off early. My destination was the most northerly point of Sumatra and the location of the devastating earthquake and resulting Tsunami on Boxing Day in 2004. I knew that I would not be able to make it in one day and that there would probably be no guesthouses so picked up some provisions to camp.

I managed to waste a whole hour by taking the wrong road and ending up back at the port via the small road festooned with crazy scooter riders. I annoyed the toll road guys once again by taking it back to the city again.

The road was in good condition for most of the way with only the occasional pothole. Suicidal scooter riders made things interesting but I could mainly outrun them. There were the typical pillocks in 4x4's who thought they owned the road. I think I witnessed the aftermath of at least 3 accidents. People stood in the middle of the road every few kilometers with fishing nets for drivers to throw money it. I'm not sure what it was, maybe some unnoffical toll system.

Late afternoon I decided to stop for a break in a convenient hut at the side of the road next to a massive rice paddy. Storm clouds were brewing and I needed to find somewhere to camp. Despite being right at the side of the road it was as good a place as any and would keep me dry and meant I would not have to dry my tent. I lay down for a nap and various curious locals appeared on scooters to take photos of the strange bearded white man lying on the floor and to generally annoy me.

As it got dark they dissappeared and I was left alone save for a cat who looked at the sky rather apprehensively. I started to cook my tea whilst it started to 'right royally piddle it down'. I was soon joined over the next couple of hours by about 20 scooter travellers seeking shelter. They eyed me suspiciously in the dark whilst I ate my noodles. Once it had stopped raining they also went off on their way and I set up my mosquito net and attempted to get some kip. During the night someone on a scooter pulled up, shouted something angrily at me, then rode off.

Exactly 12 hours after it got dark the sun rose at 6:30am. I was already up having had not much sleep and set off once again. I stopped frequently for sugary energy drinks to keep me going the remaining 300km. I got to the port in Bandar Aceh 15 minutes too late to catch the ferry to the island of Pulau Weh, an apparently pristine and uncrowded diving spot when compared to Ko Tao, Thailand.

I paid a rickshaw driver to show me to the cheapest hotel in town. He also took me to see a big boat that had been washed ashore by the 300km/hr, 20 metre high Tsunami and ended up 4km in the centre of a residential area! The pictures on a memorial there also showed the devastation, although everything appears to have been rebuilt. Incredibly some of the only things to survice the wave were Mosques, hence many locals actually converted from Christianity to Islam shortly afterwards apparently!

There was a reason for it being the cheapest hotel in town. Everything else was twice the price. The place is seemingly the only thing not to have been rebuilt and renovated since the 2004 disaster. You can still see the watermarks on the walls of my room and various bits of the roof are missing. I declined taking a shower once I saw the bathing facilities. Still I only needed one night of sleep and peace and maybe the 'just washed ashore' look is part of the attraction to potential guests?

The ferry the next day to Pulau Weh was at 2pm. I turned up early at 10 to get a ticket. Some other big bikes pulled up not long before the ferry left. They were locals from Medan and the first big bikes I had seen.

I spent the 2 hour crossing chatting to curious locals since I was the only Westerner on the boat. Everyone was friendly and smiling and seemingly glad to see me. A man had a conversation with me in broken English and then gave me a packet of clove flavoured cigarettes.

Imagine a 20metre high wave travelling at 300km/h.

Lots of people told me about 'Kilometre Zero' on Pulau Weh. From what I could make out it's the most northern point of Indonesia.

I made my way to where the 'Lying Planet' said there were the most guesthouses and parked my bike at the end of the road. I had to trek through the jungle for 1km in full gear carrying my luggage to get the the bungalows reccomended by some other tourists. It was worth it. A tranquil setting, my own bungalow on stilts for £4 a night, set off the ground to keep cool and catch the sea breeze. Pristine and diverse coral reefs only metres from the shore and stupidly friendly locals who are ecstatically glad to see tourist. Diving here is 150 Euros for 10 dives so I will be having some of that action.

There are about 50 tourists here on the entire island. It's taken 3 long hard days to get here. I thought there would be trouble in paradise but last night I found somewhere that has beer. I am happy now, especially after my first dive today.

The current was very strong where we wanted to start so we got in next to an island and made our way along a very steep ridge that dropped sharply to silly depths. There were an incredible amount of fish. Huge tuna and trevally, scorpion fish, cuttlefish, puffer fish and lots of tiny jellyfish that sting the lips but can be ignored. They disappear with depth and current. We were down for 54 minutes, my longest dive yet considering the conditions.

I may be here for a while...

The Amazing Flying Motorcycle

2010-02-25T14:02:00.000Z

Whilst bumming around KL I visited Batu Caves, the location of a Hindu Temple. There were lots of steps up and it was nice and hot. Thankfully someone had the sense to stick a useful sign at the top.

There was also quite a nice view from the top of the KL Menora tower.

Sunny Finally opened after a week of waiting. I could finally get some new tyres, some nice knobbly offroad ones, for the potentially hard slog across Indonesia. There were also some aluminium boxes there which fit my rack perfectly so I snapped them up at a discounted rate and posted my soft panniers home. I like these ones. I'll try to not break them. I discovered my engine was running very rich upon spark plug removal so tweaked my carburettor a bit more but it still ran rough on the way back to the guest house.

At Sunnys I noticed another Uk plated BMW, and recognised it as being Russ' who I met in Pakistan. We bumped into each other at the guest house. He was having engine troubles. Luckily despite the problems my bike has never stopped running and has always managed to get me somewhere (apart from when the valve clearance became massive in Turkey which I could adjust or for that matter when the chain snapped in Northern Thailand.

I figured out that it must be the float in the carb set incorrectly and thus with it being Sunday, and Sunny closed again, I decided to pull the bike apart on the pavement in true 'Yeah it can't be that hard to fix can it?' style. After an hour I was holding various mechanical parts in my hands trying to get to grips with exactly how it worked. One part didn't make sense, something had to be missing, and sure enough I had dropped a tiny important bit on the floor. Thankfully I found it. The bike is now running perfectly again after my confused tinkering.

I set off back to Penang to get boat to Indo. Everything ran perfectly, just as I had hoped for my anticipated island hopping adventure.

Whilst killing time for a change on Penang I met Lene from Norway and we decided to hit a beach for the day. Whilst lazing in the water on a deserted beach I heard a sharp call from an alarmed bird. I glanced up and was convinced I saw a 'dragon type creature' about 1 metre long in the water not far away. I promptly removed myself from the vicinity. Later in the day I saw it again. Possibly it may have been Nessie on her holidays but more likely I think it was a Monitor lizard. Various monkeys also visited us on the beach and I managed to fall asleep on my side in the sun and now have a half bronzed (read burnt) body.

The onion boat to Indonesia arrived on Thursday, so I could head down to Butterworth port to sort out the customs clearance. That afternoon and my bike did its greatest acrobatic trick to date when it was hoisted into the cargo hold of the boat. It was a rather apprehensive experience as she floated a few metres over the wharf whilst I hummed the theme tune from 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. I just hope she doesn't take a dip on the other side.

I now will get a ferry to Medan in the morning. I've been a bit apprehensive about Indonesia, due to the size of the archipelago and the reduced amenities in remote areas. But then again I have been swanning around Thailand etc. for the past couple of months. Now I'm rather excited at the opportunity for adventure in the jungles, and with the bike running well I am confident of few problems, but then again...it is a KTM.

Lost...

2010-02-17T08:03:00.001Z

Yesterday I decided to visit Sepang, the Malaysian F1 racetrack to see what was going on. My Garmin Etrex Vista HCx GPS directed me there. Not much was happening, just a Kawasaki racing team testing their bike. My GPS couldn't direct me back to the city. It stopped working. Nothing I can do or a technician can do anything about it. The GPS firmware has decided to go bust so I now have a rather nice paperweight which shows some pretty maps but does not tell you where you are. Fantastic.

After spending a night drinking beer and messing around with it on my laptop I am now pretty stressed since I need the thing to find waypoints that Carlos has given me for getting my bike to Indonesia. I also now get lost rather easily, even walking around town. I've spent the day trying to get hold of an equivalent unit but no one has one, thus I'll probably have to fork out for another one, the Garmin 60CSx. Of course I will also need a completely new mounting system for the bike, which I am also not happy with.

This trip is really wearing me down. The bike still isn't running right, the fan has stopped working meaning that the radiator boiled over in traffic enveloping me in a cloud of steam and various bolts have fallen out of the frame. Thanks to the Chinese New Year the mechanic still isn't open yet thus I can't get anything sorted, or the new tyres I need.

If only I could start again with what I've learnt so far...

Welcome To The Jungle

2010-02-14T09:55:00.000Z

At the KTM dealers for the umpteenth day in a row and I decided to pull the exhaust apart to weld up a hole that had appeared. To get it out easily we had to remove the radiator and upon removal managed to shear yet more rusted bolts requiring some grinding, drilling and tapping. I also decided to clean my sheepskin seat since a colony of ants had decided to make it home.

Eventually the bike was finished so I returned 'Slagathor' to her owners and tried to find the right bus to the dealers. A helpful little Indian man offered me a lift on his scooter and was amazed with my helmet, so much so that he wanted three separate photos in various combinations.

He showed me which bus to get and waited with me, giving me his mobile number and address and asking whether he could come with me to Australia. We waited for about half an hour. Lots of buses came and went, apart from the one that he said I should get. I got bored of his company so jumped on a random bus. The driver told me that I should get another bus, despite the place I wanted to go to being posted on his route. I jumped off and got on the other bus. This driver also told me that he was not going where I wanted to go. I decided to see how not near to where I wanted to go he was going so stayed on. He dropped me off directly outside the dealers.

I was plied with a pretty big bill, which was expected, since some of the KTM parts I wanted only came as part of bigger parts which I didn't need, thus I had to pay for the big bits. The labour charges were minimal despite the amount of work. There was another KTM 640 there on display so I plundered it for bits. I was also given lots of stickers, a t-shirt and other bits of KTM merchandising tat to help me on my journey. I'm not sure how the KTM branded chinese money envelopes will be much use.

Despite the rebuild on my carburettor the bike ran badly and cut a few times on the way back to the guest house. I guessed this was because I had changed the needle location in India so changed it back to where it should have been.

The next day I set off for cooler climes towards the Cameron Highlands. The bike was not running too well. I figured the carb still needed tweaking. It also tended to runaway to about half throttle a lot, so I also figured that maybe there was dirt in the carb. A spark plug change probably wouldnt go amiss either but that could wait until KL.

I found a nice quiet guest house where I checked in for two days. I went out for one of the best Indian meals I've had. Tandoori Chicken for £1.50 with naan bread and curry sauce and rice. Why can't Indians cook like this in India? It's not hard guys! I don't think I had a single nice meal in India. All the decent cooks must be banished or something. I also discovered this tasty treat... Kickapoo Joy Juice!

I booked myself on a tour for the next day thinking that I should probably do more than laze around and read and tinker with the bike. We set off early first to a butterfly farm, which was just a front for showcasing all the fantastic poisonous jungle critters that we could possibly encounter.

I decided against holding some scorpions after my previous experiences in Turkey oh so long ago.

I probably went a bit overboard with my photos of butterflies.

We continued on our trip in a second Landrover Discovery 110 since the first had broken down. Soon the ride became rather hairy as we started to make our way up a very muddy track. There would have been no way I could have gotten my bike up there. With the absence of seatbelts I almost put my elbow through the window a few times. My action photos don't quite capture the true flavour of the moment as we were rocked from side to side next to a precarious edge.

After trekking through the humid jungle for a couple of hours we arrived at the site of a blooming Rafflesia, or in other words, a big urinal smelling red flower which isn't actually a flower but instead a fungus or mushroom or something apparently. I wasn't really paying attention, I was on the lookout for poisonous things and leeches.

We slid back down the hill to an 'authentic' aboriginal village where they sat around smoking suspicious smelling cigarettes or hid inside watching SKY TV. We had a demonstration of a blowpipe and were allowed a go too. I was tempted to ask to be shot in the leg for the purposes of science but had second thoughts.

We were then carted off to the Boh Tea plantation, where most of Lipton's tea comes from apparently. I had a couple of cuppas and some nice cake whilst enjoying Telly Tubby land.

We finally visited a strawberry farm. Most of the Cameron Highlands seem to be constructed of plastic greenhouses. There were strawberries and cream on sale at the farm, but I had already stuffed myself by sampling the produce directly from the bushes when nobody was watching.

All in all it was a very English day and thoroughly enjoyable. I wasn't looking forwards to Malaysia after the joys of Thailand and had the feeling it would be similar to India, but the Indians here are so friendly and most importantly they have some common sense! They don't drive like idiots!

That night we sat around a camp fire drinking and enjoying the cool mountain air. We stared into the fire and had deep conversations, coming up with meaningful similes for the fire. 'Fire is like the window to your imagination, everyone looks in to see something different', was one guys inspirational offering. After a moments deep contemplation all I could come up with was 'Fire is hot'.

I set off the next day to Kuala Lumpur. I was not looking forwards to the heat of the city but wanted to experience the Chinese New Year. My bike slowly ran better on the way there so I think there may have been a bit of dirt in one of the carb jets.

About 100km from the city there was almost solid traffic heading in the opposite direction. I wondered whether they were fleeing from some natural disaster which I was unaware of but apparently they're just going on holiday for the New Year.

The city itself did not loom out of the distance as I expected. About 10km away I rode over a hill and was greeted with literally a wall of gleaming skyscrapers. It was rather awe inspiring. The city traffic was rather light and the highways were fast and open. The signs were no use to me so I had to rely on my GPS, as always in cities, to guide me to where I though the guest house I wanted was. There were a lot of buses on the streets and people waiting for them. Again I think they were trying to escape at the last minute for the New Year but I may also have just ridden through the bus station by mistake.

I found the guest house and will have to spend a couple of days seeing the sights and lazing around before the shops and embassies open again, either on Tuesday or Wednesday.

On New Years Eve there were lots of firecrackers set off in the streets. It was all rather dangerous but the tourists loved it. To me it sounded like someone having fun with lots of bubble wrap.

I find KL very similar to Angkor surprisingly. They are both jungles within the jungle. KL is a surprisingly green city in places but as always I find large cities pretty lonely places.

If Carlsberg Made Toasters...

2010-02-07T12:03:00.001Z

They probably wouldn't be the best toaster's in the world.... This one would...

KTM merchandising is a bit bonkers, but pretty cool!

I'm going to get myself a proper Tankbag, better than strapping my camera case to the tank as I do at the moment. I am tempted to get some decent Aluminium boxes, but they would seriously detract from my budget. I'm completely undecided on luggage once again. Soft luggage is great for performance in the centre of the bike, but now has a couple of rips and I'm constantly worried about things being pilfered. Aluminium I found was durable and more secure but put a bit too much stress on the frame, but the boxes I had made in Pakistan were pretty heavy and didn't mount properly... Should have gotten decent stuff before I set off. We live and learn...

Whilst my bike was being systematically dismantled and rebuilt I felt rather lonely, so rented this little minx.

I've nicknamed her 'Slagathor'. She's like a Hairdryer on steroids with a top speed of about 50mph. Down hill... With the wind behind me... Whilst slipstreaming behind a a truck... You get the idea... It's enough to allow me to explore the Island though.

I found a nice bay where the fishermen moor their boats. There were some big jelly fish in the water.

I noticed something bobbing along not far away. It was a wild otter munching on discarded fish. My lens is a bit pathetic for zoom shots but that small black dot is an otter, I assure you.

There's an Irish guy here at this guest house. He annoys a lot of people here because he's been on the lash for the past few days. He constantly had a can of beer in his hand until this morning when he awoke from his stupor and discovered someone has nicked all his money and passport. The people at the guest house are a bit disappointed since it means he's now stuck here. He looks rather uncomfortable and unhappy now that he only has a bottle of water in his hand.

My plan now is to find out more about shipping to Indonesia tomorrow then head inland towards the Cameron highlands.

I've kept forgetting to add this slide show I made when I was in Kathmandu, so here it is...

The Falang In Penang

2010-02-06T06:13:00.000Z

My time on Koh Tao came to a rather abrubt end one morning at 5am when I was unceremoniously turfed from the ferry back onto the mainland after a few bad hours of sleep. A couple of truck drivers were rather annoyed as well since I had managed to block their lorries in with my bike so they had to wait for me to remove my straps and disembark.

It was still dark at 5am but I decided to push on South and across Thailand to Krabi where I would spend the night. I hadn't left myself much time on my visa since it expired the next day so I would then have to push on to Malaysia. The road to Krabi was mainly highway but I amused myself by taking photos of my shadow.

Fantastic limestone rock formations emerged from the landscape like sleeping monsters and the foliage also appeared to get bigger. Massive palm trees lined the road and it was all very scenic.

I arrived in Krabi at about 10am, had some breakfast, found a guesthouse, then went to sleep. I awoke at 4pm and decided that I should probably have a look at what the town had to offer. I expected some nice beaches in the bay but there just appeared to be a lot of mangrove trees. The same tout asked me 3 times whether I wanted a boat ride. I returned to my hostel just as it started to rain pretty heavily. I was glad since the bike would get a good wash after spending a week on an island in the salt air. I ate then went to bed. I'm sure Krabi is a nice place but I was too tired to appreciate it.

I set off early the next day to get to Malaysia. After 5 hours and 300km I saw a sign for 'the border'. I followed it curiously since I still thought I was a good 50km away from where I thought the border was. The road snaked through the jungle and then I did indeed arrive at the border. It was literally a drive through border in the middle of the jungle, sort of like a McDonalds, but I still had to get off the bike and wander around the Thai side being directed from window to window just to get my passport stamped. For some reason the moody guy at the window labelled 'departures' wanted me to go to one labelled 'information'. They sent me back to the 'departures' man who stamped my passport then let me go. Since I was now stamped out of Thailand with nothing to stop me leaving I decided against going to customs so that they could get confused about the paperwork for the bike and just rode over the border. Nobody seemed bothered.

Just over the border I noticed a 4x4 parked up. It had plates from the Netherlands and was a couple of overlanders I had last met on Koh Chang. They were also surprised that there was a border here. They're on their way to Kuala Lumpur to ship their bike to India so that they can begin the long journey back to Europe. Good luck guys!

Immigration on the Malaysian side couldn't have been easier. I filled in a form, and was given a 3 month visa for free. The cheerful man behind the window was happy to welcome me to Malaysia and hoped that I would enjoy my stay. The man at customs knew exactly what to do with my Carnet, stamped it, then waved me on my way.

I was headed to Georgetown on the Island of Penang. Here I hoped to find a place to ship the bike to Indonesia once I have explored Malaysia a bit more. There are also KTM dealers here! The first I will have seen since Turkey. I want to get my rear shock absorber re-built as well as a decent service by someone who hopefully knows what they are doing. I'm not holding my breath but we can all dream.

After 50km or so I stopped at a petrol station. I had a brief conversation with a man from Bangladesh who, once I had mentioned I was from Manchester, kept naming footballers. I get this a lot. Mostly I just have to stare blankly, nod and agree. They soon seem to figure out that I have no idea who the names they keep repeating over and over are. They then look at me as if I'm stupid, which I am, and there is an awkward silence. I then make my getaway.

Luckilly there was an ATM there since the money change shops at the border were closed for Friday prayers and couldn't change my Thai Baht. I had no idea what the exchange rate for Sterling was so after a couple of attempts at trying to take out more money than I had, ended up with 1500 Ringit. The petrol station had 97 Octane petrol, the best I had probably seen since Europe. 16 litres cost me 34 Ringit. I figured out that there is about 5 Ringit to the Pound thus it was £7 for 16 litres of top quality fuel. Bargain! It's amazing how much healthier my engine sounds with the better petrol. I guess that's the price of higher compression and higher performance.

I took the toll road highway South towards Penang. Unlike Thailand, bikes are allowed on. We also don't have to pay and have seperate chevroned lanes marked out for us! In Thailand the police just wanted you to ride in the gutter. The Malaysian's have also built little storm shelters for bikers for when it rains. So thoughtful!

After another couple of hundred kilometers the traffic started to thicken and the bikes were directed to a seperate lane to the left, for what I presumed was to bypass the toll booth. Most of the bikes pulled over for what I also presumed was a break. I pulled over too but also to try to figure out why Helmet Cam had stopped working. I think he got wet when I took him diving or maybe the batteries are playing up.

I moved off again and was shortly greeted by an unexpected toll booth. I fumbled around for change and annoyed the woman in the booth as well as the bikes behind me. It clicked, the other bikes who had pulled over were getting their change ready.

I was soon on the bridge across the water to Penang island. It's several kilometers long. I wanted to take a video but as I mentioned Helmet Cam was asleep.

Once on Penang Island I attempted to negotiate through the traffic and down the one-way streets to find a guesthouse. This sign wasn't much use...

I managed to get to Chinatown where most of the guesthouses seem to be. I had a beer in a cafe whilst trying to decide where to stay. An enterprising businessman took advantage of where I had parked my bike to make some extra cash.

After finding a guesthouse I went out for a little walk. Georgetown is a wonderful fusion of Indians, Chinese, Malaysians and Muslims all living together in a vague semblence of organisation which I would like to attribute to the former British rule (yes maybe we did something right!). The call to prayer is sometimes accompanied by Chinese drums being beaten. A Indian man in a cycle rickshaw passed me by, smiled, then kept going. I was amazed he didn't keep hassling me. I had some food at a small streetside stall. The Indian man did his funny little head nod dance when I asked for noodles and chicken. He cooked up an amazing fusion of Indian and Oriental dishes.

On my walk back to the hostel, fat women hid in bushes and whispered 'hello darling' to me. I grinned at them, waved and said 'hello' loudly. They tried to hide behind tiny bushes. Such friendly people!

This morning I went on the hunt for a KTM dealer, the first one I will have encountered since Turkey! I found it after a 2 hour hunt during which I asked lots of directions and even had someone draw me a map which would have taken me straight there had I not taken a wrong exit and ended up on the highway. Whilst I was stuck in traffic an old man came and had a conversation with me about the virtues of patience.

I found the dealer. They had lots of 990's. I was tempted to trade my bike in and get one. I am now bike-less, having left Katie for the best service she will probably have had this trip. My rear suspension is being rebuilt, the engine is being properly serviced together with my carb being tuned and I'm having new tyres and wheel bearings put on together with numerous other little things. All in preparation for potentially bad roads in Indonesia together with the long slog across the Australian desert.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do or where I will go next. I could try and get across to Borneo or wander around Malaysia for a bit before heading across Indonesia. Maybe some more diving is in order but I know it will never be as cheap as on Koh Tao.

Old News

2010-02-04T14:27:00.000Z

A rather funny video that Carlos edited from our exploits a few months ago...

Trouble In Paradise

2010-02-02T09:44:00.000Z

At 30m depth the visibility is down to 5m. Nitrogen Narcosis makes me feel giddy and elated. I start to giggle, realise where I am then try to get a grip. I breath steadily, through the murk my buddy points to a shape getting nearer... it's a bull shark... it gets closer, to within 3m. SHIT!, that bastard is bigger than I am! Thankfully it's not interested in an easy meal.

I completed my deep dive training today. 30m is a long way down with 4x atmospheric pressure pushing down on top of you. Last night we did our first night dive. Jumping into the sea in pitch black with full SCUBA gear and a torch. Descending into the depths is like stepping out of a spaceship. Incredibly there is more life on the sea floor at night than there is during the day. It's also more exciting to find it with a small beam of light. When you turn the torches off and wave your hand through the water, tiny luminous green sparks seem to emit from your fingertips - Plankton Bioluminescence. This dive was possibly the coolest thing I have ever done!

I have two more advanced training dives for tomorrow, then I must leave. I could stay here for a long time. It costs about £500 to do dive master training over about 3 months, including unlimited free dives. I'm very tempted, but my visa expires in 3 days. I suppose I could nip down to Malaysia on the bike, get a 3 month visa then come back, but I really shouldn't. I should get to Australia. I'm looking forwards to riding through the empty desert after spending so much time around people. Tomorrow I should leave... tomorrow...

Pardise by the Dashboard Light

2010-01-31T12:19:00.000Z

I left Chiang Mai because I had spent too much time in the North. I also figured that because of all my accidents something was telling me to get a move on. My destination was Koh Tao (Turtle Island) in the South of Thailand to do some diving since it's the cheapest place in the World to learn here. I estimated it would take me 3 days to ride the 1200 odd km

650 Km later that day I arrived in Ayythara, not far from Bangkok. I could have made the capital but the crazy traffic would have hampered many of my efforts to get anywhere. I found a small guesthouse and ate and slept to continue the onslaught south in the morning.

The next day my GPS persisted in taking me straight through the centre of Bangkok. The street signs didn't help since they all also directed me to Bangkok or told me to take U-turns to places I had already been.

I was nervous after my previous accidents, especially in traffic, always expecting someone to do something stupid. I used the horn a fair bit which probably upset and surprised the Thai's. I was also rather uneasy on the bike but made myself do little things to get back the confidence I had lost. Just riding over a kerb or doing a U-turn helped. Little things, baby steps.
Somehow I made it through the chaos and was on the highway heading South. Another 600km later and I arrived in Chumporn where I could find the night ferry.

I spend a good 2 hours trying to find the right boat which could take me and the bike. I asked drunken fishermen which way and how far to the boat. To be fair they were highly accurate on the directions, they just didn't realise that I couldn't get my bike onto a speedboat.

Just as it was getting dark I found the right boat. It left at 11pm that night. I headed to a restaurant to wait it out. Upon my return I bought a ticket for myself and the bike and was ushered down the ramp to park on the deck. This was the main supply boat for the island. It was filled with crates of beer, cola, food of every type, 10 tonnes of building sand, breezeblocks, generators and even a house. I anxiously watched 2 fuel trucks reverse onto the boat. If anything happened on the trip across we would be going up, then down pretty fast.

Jam Packed.

I expected to have to spend a night on the deck of the boat but amazingly there was a dorm with bunk beds. I managed to get some sleep before we arrived at 6am. I was turfed off the boat with my bike feeling rather groggy and confused.

I rode around the island as the sun rose to get acquainted and to take a photo of the dawn, something I usually try very hard to avoid seeing. I snuck into a 5 star resort where I picked up a couple of stray dogs for a change then realised I was on the wrong side of the island to see the dawn. I took a photo of a cloud and some crabs instead.

I met up with Dan who I had met on 4000 Islands in Laos. He had recently completed his PADI Open Water training which I also wanted to do. He suggested I go to a dive school first to sign up because most give discounts on accomodation. By 10am I was signed up for the 4 day course and billeted in a guesthouse.

That afternoon I commenced my training. We dived the next day in a shallow bay to put into practise what we had learnt. The day afer we went on our first proper dives to 10 metres depth. Just before the second we heard a call over the radio. There was a whale shark not far away. The boat chugged off to enable us to catch a glimpse. When we arrived at the site it was reminiscent of D-Day. Boats with divers and snorkelers on were everywhere. It was easy to see where the big fish was, it had a trail of demented snorkellers after it. We jumped in with just our masks to try and catch a glimpse. I was 10 seconds too late and was only able to see a diver below me.

The next day we completed our training with two fun dives. The first was down to 18m, the maximum we are allowed to go. It was pretty deep, despite not sounding it. The pressure is almost 3x the pressure on the surface. Through the murk we could make out reef sharks about 10m below us. The biggest was about 3m in length.

We completed our training with a second dive where we saw a scorpion fish, moray eel and clown fish amongst other things. I've decided to start my advanced training straight away. Tomorrow we will do our first unsupervised fun dive followed by an adventure night dive. I will then do 4 other courses including navigation and deep diving to go down to a depth of up to 30 metres.

Tough Stuff this overlanding!

10mm is all it takes.

2010-01-24T09:21:00.000Z

The HUBB meeting in Chiang Mai was a good event to make a few contacts with fellow overlanders as well as some of the local ExPats who ride out here. I met Jeff who runs a bike shop and we agreed to go on a trail ride out together a few days later. Morgan came along too to make up a gang of two KTM's and one Suzuki DRZ 400.

The HUBB meet

Jeff had a puncture on the ride there so we popped along to the X-Centre, where hungover backpackers like to throw themselves off a crane with an elastic band strapped to their ankles or down a hill in a big inflatable ball.
There were a couple of Pirelli tyres there which would have been suitable for the KTM at £80 for the pair, despite being 10mm undersize on the width. I decided that I would pop back the next day to get them fitted. We all though that 10mm would not make a huge difference.

Back on the dirt at last and despite describing himself as a 'Gentleman Trail Rider', that DRZ can shift. I had fun skidding round corners due to the lack of tread on my existing tyres but succeeded in riding off-road quite quickly without falling off. I was rather pleased with myself.

The next day I popped back to the X-Centre's workshop to change my rubber and stick some heavier fork oil in. The tyres seemed ok despite feeling a little twitchy but I put that down to needing to wear them in a bit.

Sending the lads off to change the tyres, balls to using my tyre levers!

On the ride back into town as I was riding in the outside lane of a dual carriageway in case some bugger pulled out from a side road without looking and some bugger on a scooter pulled out from a side road without looking. I had no warning. The scooter just rode straight across the main road without even looking. If I had been a Thai 4x4 they would have been killed. Luckilly I was a Fallang on a big bike but still T-Boned them and down we all went in a screech of tyres and scraping plastic. I picked myself up off the floor, rather angry, and mouthed off a bit. The scooter was being ridden by a Thai woman who was wearing a helmet. The man, who I think was her husband, on the back had managed to do a complete somersault over my bike but was completely un-injured thanks to the baseball cap that was protecting his skull. He immediately jumped up, shook my hand, then started directing traffic around the scene.

I moved my bike out the road and went back to tend to the woman. She had a sore hip so an ambulance was rung and she was carted off. A policeman also arrived at the scene and indicated that we had to wait for the traffic police. I waited with 'the husband' who seemed unconcered about his missus. His breath stunk of alcohol and he kept shaking my hand. Having heard stories of Westerners involved in accidents where the blame is placed entirely on them despite the circumstances I was wary. 'If you weren't here the accident wouldn't have happened' is apparently the post event report. The policeman wanted to see my driving license so I showed it to him but kept a firm grip so he couldn't confiscate it. I also made sure my keys were safely hidden away.

Eventually the traffic police arrived, took some photos, wrote something in their big book of accidents, asked for my mobile number, told me they would call in a few days, then buggered off. I think they could see that the guy who had been on the back was a bit worse for wear and maybe thought he was the rider. He also hopped on his scooter and wobbled off, leaving me on my own with my damaged bike. Thanks guys! You are a credit to the Thai police force! I counted myself lucky that I had not been carted off to jail though.

The forks were slightly twisted so I got out my tools to re-align them. I had also lost my right wing mirror at last. It has taken some previous abuse before deciding to give up. Whilst tinkering I met a guy who had flown his small plane from Germany to Thailand. That sounded like a paperwork nightmare, especially since he had also brought his dog.

On the way back to the hostel I could hear some rattling from the front and discovered that my headlight had been smashed. I had wondered where the glass in the road had come from and was dissapointed that my Touratech headlight protector was seemingly unable to provide protection from people's heads.

At least I had learnt a new lesson. Despite all my problems on the trip and no matter how stressed I get I always learn something.

The next day Jeff had organised a big bike ride out, eventually getting to the Burmese border to do a visa run. In no particular order there was a Triumph Bonneville, Triumph Tiger, Africa Twin, Harley and Honda Hornet. On the highways I was left behind on the KTM, not having the same top speed, but I could just about keep up with some of the other bikes in the corners. The new tyres felt ok, if a little twitchy. We stopped after a hundred km or so and I discovered my bash plate had lost 4 bolts and was thus only secured by one. The first time that had ever happened.

We stopped that night in Nan and proceeded the next day to Chiang Rai along some quiet country roads. Whilst coming round one corner Jeff decided to stop to take a photo. The Harley in front of me slowed and went round him momentarily blocking my view of Jeff. I braked, not too hard and the front skidded and tucked under on some gravel. I almost ploughed straight into the back of Jeff but he heard me coming and moved forwards a bit more. Apart from a bit of road rash everything was ok. I noticed that I had even captured the event on camera. At least I had learnt another lesson, don't try to keep up and ride too close to your limit. It's very easy when riding with the pack to want to keep the rear brake lights of the guy in front in your sights, especially since I usually ride alone.

Jeff demonstrates which side is supposed to be up when cornering.

We proceeded further on along the roads, this time I was taking it easy. As I rounded one corner coming down a hill I saw the rest of the guys pulled over. I guessed that someone else had had an off so started to slow down. Before I knew it the front had once again tucked under and I was on my arse on the floor. More gravel but I also had another idea as to what was causing it now...

The other biker who had wiped out was One-Armed West. A very good rider on his Honda Hornet despite having only his right arm for control. He had come round the corner and slid on some gravel. His bike had shot 15 foot down the hill after taking out a concrete bollard and he had come to rest 5 feet further down the hill, just missing a crop of freshly cut bamboo.

Mr West plays hide and seek.

He was dragged back up the hill and managed to scare the local populus who had turned up to help when his fake arm popped off. His bike was pulled back up the hill too and loaded into the back of a local pickup truck. He also jumped in the front and was whisked back home to Chiang Mai. Seemingly all he had was a busted hand and some bruising.

A bloody lucky escape!

When we arrived in Chiang Mai we drank and danced the night away then tried to get up early the next morning so that those that had to could nip across the Burmese border on their visa run.

I managed to convince the border guards to let me take my bike across for an hour since I also needed new paperwork for the bike as well as myself. I was waved out of Thailand and let into Burma. A not very official looking offical in an office made me pay 50p for insurance for my bike. At another office some more people made me pay 50p again for what they seemed to describe as a permit for my bike. They then wanted about 40p for a scrap of paper with my registration number written on it. I got bored with the 'paying for paper' game so took it and just rode off. A policeman told me I was only allowed about 5km into Burma so off I went expecting to find a checkpoint down the road. 10km later and there was no checkpoint so I stopped in a field to take a photo of a confused looking man with some cows. I then rode back to the border.

Although I didn't venture very far, Burma seemed like a cross between Cambodia and India. Road rules were out the window and the horn is man's greatest invention. At least I had earned a sticker for the bike. I've now ridden in every adjacent country between here and the UK.

New sticker covering up the road rash.

I rode back to Chiang Mai and straight to a guesthouse. I was shattered so pretty much went straight to bed. The next day I went to treat my bike to a good clean at the local Shell petrol station. I also wanted to change my tyres back to my well work Metzlers which had lasted since Iran. Despite being only 10mm smaller and looking fine, the Pirrelli's just weren't grippy enough, also possibly since they were a slightly harder compound. I also repaired my headlight and various other bits. I'm becoming a master of bodgery. Thankyou to Ian for letting me use his workshop!

I'm going to set off South tomorrow. I think I've overstayed my welcome in Northern Thailand. It's too easy to travel here. I need some stress and adventure again.

Bordering Insanity

2010-01-16T08:38:00.001Z

I got up early the next day. I had been given directions to a farm where there were lots of cow bones. My plan was to get a set of horns to attach to my bike to neutralise the effect of the tigers and squeaky horn. Upon arrival I was greeted by rather a apprehensive herd of cows standing next to a cage of their brethren's bones and carcasses. I decided against getting a set of horns since they looked a bit too maggoty.

Before

After

I then rode North along the same racetrack road that I had ridden last time with Carlos. It was still fantastic.

Together once again, we attempted to visit a long necked tribe village. We followed signs along some dirt tracks and came to an army border post. The soldier on duty was reading a paper but explained to us that the Burmese border was a couple of hundred meters further on.

A lady in a shack wanted 500Baht for us to see the long necked tribes people. We decided against paying for the privilege of taking photos of people.

There was a bridge, it was just more fun to ride through the river.

We set off then to the 'fish caves'. It turned out to be a hollow in a rock with some big fish in it. Pretty much any slightly out of the ordinary feature of the landscape is a big tourist attraction around here.

We camped that night in Pai and set off the next day to follow the Burmese border North. We explored many small mountain roads and camped down a dirt track about 200 metres from the Burmese border according to my GPS. George attempted to set a hammock up between mine and his bike and just ended up pulling mine over.

Whilst creeping through the jungle clutching my roll of toilet paper the next morning on my way to perform my daily ablutions I was wary of any border patrols who might literally catch me with my pants down.

Before we descended from the mountains we took a gander at a big golden buddha and a small fat white one.

Once again we followed a border road and ended up in a very small village with paved roads. An irritated dog with too many pups was the only thing that greeted us.

Shortly after lunch we discovered a burmese military outpost. This was literally the border with Burma. The Burmese had craftily erected sharpened bamboo poles together with tin cans to deter any invasion attempts. The Thai's countered this threat by reversing their giant Humvees with with 50 cal machineguns into covertly into bushes where they could monitor their foes.

George popped over the ditch next to said base to have a look down the hill. Someone shouted out from the Burmese side so we quickly hotfooted away before being arrested as British spies.

A covertly dressed British spy creeping into Burma.

We headed up for a gander at the golden triangle, the cornerstone of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos and what was once the hubb of the Opium trade.

A man from a small shop selling cold drinks demonstrated that it is actually possible to milk a cat. I had always wondered. Strangely the proprietor and the cat looked rather pleased with themselves.

We then followed the Mekong in an attempt to find a beach to camp on. Annoyingly all the good ones seemed to be on the Laos side. We slept in small raised hut used by farmers for their lunch breaks. George reversed over a plastic irrigation pipe so we had to fix it with gaffa tape and rubber gloves. For some reason none of us got a very good nights sleep on the wooden decking.

'Don't worry Morgan, I'm a plumber!'

We headed on down to Chiang Mai stopping at petrol stations to look cool.

At one scenic stop we observed some Thai army scouts being drilled whilst standing in a river whilst confused picnickers looked on. Must be another attempt to fool the Burmese.

Just short of Chiang Mai my bike turned 80,000km old. Thats a lot for a single cylinder thumper. A rebuild will be required in Oz.

In Chiang Mai we met Adam, an Israeli going round the world on a BMW HP2, one cool looking bike. A BMW boxer twin engine in an enduro chassis with a dry weight of only 170kg. Pure offroad power. Me likes!

We went for a Traditional Thai massage. It was more like a beating. I never knew my feet could touch the back of my head.

Tonight is a Horizons Unlimited meeting, there are a few overlanders in town so it will be good to share stories and photos.

And despite the horrendous amount of time it takes me, I'm trying to add photos with my entries from now on. Here's are a few artsy shots I did on a beach.

Breakfast In Burma

2010-01-11T11:38:00.002Z

The parts I had been waiting for arrived just in time, a new chain and sprocket set and some new front brake pads, thanks to Darren at Redline in the UK for sending stuff once again.

Once everything was sorted, together with yet more crazy modifications, a new chain oiling device - the mechanic must be fed up of creating crazy contraptions for me, I set off back to the the tourist area. Whilst sat having a beer with Marc who should happen to wander past but John and Bev, a couple from the UK on their way to New Zealand. It's funny how we overlanders keep bumping into one another unexpectedly.

I set off early the next morning with just enough time to get to the Burmese border before my visa expired. Although I could have extended it in Bangkok it would have cost me about 30 Euros, plus I couldn't be bothered with the hassle.

I arrived in Mae Sot after about 600km on the road and found a cheap guesthouse, a room with a bed and a fan. The next morning I left my luggage in the room to pop over the border for an hour and get a new visa.

At the border I was told that I wasn't allowed to take my bike over by the Thai immigration, I think I was, but they couldn't be bothered with the paperwork. I set off on foot over yet another 'friendship bridge' and was immediately joined by a Burmese man who started telling me things about Burma.

He pointed out the people crossing the river below on their daily commute to work from Burma to Thailand in giant tractor tyre inner tubes. They Thai's had conveniently built some concrete steps to facilitate their illegal commute. Apparently it costs 30 Baht to get across. I might try it sometime.

The other way from Burma into Thailand

About halfway over the bridge and I was beginning to wonder whether he would want money for being my guide, so I asked him. He said he did not and we walked the rest of the way to the checkpost in awkward silence where he promptly disappeared.

At the immigration office I had to pay 500 Baht (10Euros) for my visa. The officer proudly handed me a scrap of paper with my passport number scribbled on it. They would keep my passport until I returned.

I trudged off in full motorcycle gear to explore the dusty, noisy border town. Once again the locals wondered who the oddly dressed idiot was. I just smiled like the idiot I was.

I found a coffee shop so sat people watching for half an hour. A lot of the Burmese had ochre coloured face paint on. Others seemed to have half wiped it off so they looked unwashed.

I exchanged 100 Thai Baht for an unknown exchange rate and was given a few notes in exchange. This was plenty to pay for some cigar type things they were selling and a fried samosa. I still don't know what's in the cigars, they looked similar to Cuban ones but have rolled leaves inside. It wasn't until after I had crossed back into Thailand that I realised I may have smuggled some sort of drug across. It turns out that after trying them with Morgan and George that they are just very bad cigars akin to eating a piece of charcoal.

I quickly got bored of wondering round in the increasing heat and traffic chaos and set off back to the border. Burma is indeed the missing link between India and Thailand. I handed back my 'visa' in return for my passport and was armed with a fresh 15 day Thai visa on the other side of the bridge.

Back at the guesthouse I packed up my bike, went for a quick coffee and set off North along a road next to the Burmese border. I had originally planned to head to Sukkothai, some ancient ruins, but realising that there was a less travelled road decided to take that instead. Sukkothai can wait, once again, until I travel South again.

The road was almost perfect. Lots of twists and turns and a few potholes on the more remote stretches. For the first time ever I got travel sickness on a bike due to all the turns.

Tomorrow I will catch up with George and Morgan who are about 150km North of me and we will head up to the Golden Triangle, the corner of Laos, Thailand and Burma, for a gander. I shall also try to get deeper into Burma at some point, possibly from one of the border crossings further South.

Also at some point I intend to write a detailed description of why I hated India. I have had many arguments and conversations with people on the subject. It seems it's the country people either love or love to hate.

There Is No Snow Here!

2010-01-09T07:25:00.002Z

We explored Ko Chang on our bikes. The other western tourists there attempted to do the same on rented scooters. A lot of them failed and fell off whilst wearing only shorts and sandals. We got some funny looks for wearing full bike gear, they bragged to each other over broken arms and sprained ankles.

Whilst Morgan and I were trying to circumnavigate the island using an old abandonned road we came across a completely isolated beach. It was polulated by a Thai man who lived in a hammock with a big stick to poke down the abundant coconuts from the palms and 3 germans who had only managed to get there in a boat.

There was a small tidal lagoon and Morgan and I frollicked in the current. Whilst Morgan attempted to dig a big hole, I set off on a mission to capture a hermit crab on a rock. I succeeded, but slipped and got a nasty gash on my toe. I stood on the rock for 10 minutes, bleeding profusely and pondering how to disembark without causing further injury. I failed and fell off anyway slicing my foot open even more. I was now able to blend in with the other tourists as I limped around.

New Years Eve saw a huge party on the beach to celebrate the blue moon. I'm sure the moon was impressed with all the drunken teenagers dancing to trance music until dawn.

George, Mena, Morgan and I set off back to Bangkok a few days later, we decided to pop down Koa San road, the major tourist district for a bit of attention and a beer.

I stayed back at Apple Guesthouse where Marc turned up the next day. After speaking to Carlos on New Years Eve he is racing down South to Australia since he only has 2 months left before he needs to be back home.

I showed Marc and Dirk (another German overlander) to Red Baron. We passed through a police roadblock where they tried to wave us over. Not being in the mood to have to pay money for we kept going. Bikes are supposed to keep to the left and ride in the gutter, a perfectly safe place to ride at 50 mph! There are no distinctions between scooters and big bikes that can actually out perform cars here. There is also no concept of advanced defensice riding from the police. We managed to ride through the same roadblock 3 times, each time riding around a policeman who jumped in front of the bikes.

We explored many of the shopping malls and once again spent much too much money. Elvis (a KTM rider who I met in Rishikesh in India) and I got stickers made for our bikes. I now have the flags of all the countries on the front of the bike like a decorated veteran soldier's ribbons.

I visited an overly expensive aquarium for something to do whilst I waited for my new chain and sprockets to arrive from the UK. I was particularly impressed with the golfish tank made from a microwave. I got a fish foot massage, where small fish will eat the dead skin from your feet. I caused a frenzy in the tank with an iritated mosquito bite which they loved, so much so that they caused it to bleed.

Myy old chain and sprockets are in serious need of replacing after being dragged down the road in Northern Thailand. The replacements have been delayed due to carrier incompetence and the weather in Europe, but I have just literally recieved word that they have arrived so I am off to battle the traffic and police and head on to Red Baron so that I can set off North.

Happy New Year!

Angkor What?

2009-12-30T06:20:00.001Z

I set off at dawn from Prostituteville towards Siem Reap (Translation : Siamese Defeated), the city next to the Temples of Angkor. The roads were pretty hairy and very reminiscent of being in India again. The Cambodians drive big jeeps way too fast. I almost witnessed a young girl get killed when she ran out into the road. Luckily the oncoming car swerved towards me instead. Most Cambodians seem to be very young, which goes some way to explaining the road behaviour, but there aways seems to be a correlation between crap roads and crap driving. I guess the older 'dangerous' citizens were killed off by the Khmer Rouge.

I arrived at about lunchtime and decided to have a drink in a cafe and decide what to do. I knew that the ancient city of Angkor was pretty big and thought it might be possible to camp somewhere. I set off to have a gander and rode down the main road where I was immediately flagged down by a guy with a walkie talkie. He told me to go back and buy a ticket for $20. Since Angkor covers a huge area there are numerous entrances, Cambodians who live in the area go in and out as they please. Us walking cash machines can't. I decided to nip down some dirt roads and avoid getting a ticket, for now. My GPS has every single dirt track and road in the area on, thus I was able to circumnavigate around him and emerge from the jungle to found some sort of ruins. Another guy with a walkie talkie immediately stopped me. I heard the word 'moto' mentioned by someone on the other side. Bugger, these guys were organised.

I went back to get a ticket. I could easily afford it, I just enjoy playing KTM hide and seek in the jungle. They took my photo for said ticket. I looked like a crazy renegade who had just emerged from a jungle, exactly the look I had been going for.

I was then approached by a policeman who told me no big motos in the park or no tourists on motos or something but the jist was that I wasn't allowed in. The locals on their bikes together with an obscene amount of Japanese tourists in huge air-conditioned buses and many many tuk tuks were. I turned on the charm, no success. I honked my squeaky horn - always good for a giggle and guaranteed to crack a smile on all but the most hardened of war vets, no success. I offered to 'buy' a ticket for my bike, no success. I told him my name was Indiana Jones - this held no sway. In the end I agreed to take my bike back to my hotel and go on a tour.

I lied.

Once again using the amazing maps on my GPS I rode 100 metres back down the rode, found a dirt track and went around the ticket office and the policeman. They should not underestimate the power of a KTM with a Garmin.

I was now able to explore at my leisure, sort of. I decided to go to Angkor Wat first (the big famous one where I have been reliably informed that they filmed streetfighter or Mortal Combat or some sort of 90's movie based on a video game - thanks Roger!) At the checkpoint where they check your tickets I was shown somewhere to park. I would then have to walk about 1 km with lots of bike gear on, leaving my loaded bike there. I decided that I was too lazy to do such a thing and also wanted a photo of my bike in front of the temple so I sweet talked the gatekeeper into letting me go further - like the locals are allowed to do. After 20 minutes I was getting nowhere so ignored him and rode on anyway.

Angkor Wat loomed through the jungle. Words cannot do it justice. I parked my bike round the other side and took a few photos, all the while expecting police to turn up and drag me away. They didn't.

I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring small jungle tracks. Most of the gatekeepers didn't care that I was visiting and stood in awe of the bike. I was asked a million times where I came from and how much it cost but unlike India I managed to maintain a cheery face.

Japanese tourists asked if I was riding a Honda or a Yamaha. None had never heard of KTM. I think they were a bit dissapointed.

Exploring Angkor was possibly one of the best days ive had this trip. Even though I didn't really go into any of the ruins, just discovering them on the bike (and avoiding the police) was exciting enough.

Shortly after sunset I gave up on the idea of camping and was in dire need of a cold shower so I headed back into town and found a nice guesthouse. Feeling hungry I went to the restaurant and after browsing the menu asked whether 'Crispy Ant Bruschetta's' were what I thought they were. They were. I just hoped that they were all dead as I munched them.

The next day I decided to explore the temples a bit more intimately, leaving all my luggage back at the hotel so nothing could get nicked. At the ticket office I met 'PC no big noisy KTM's'. I ignored him this time and rode around anyway. The day wasn't as exciting as the previous where things were brand new, but I did wonder around inside some of the temples. Sadly I didn't get to go into the big Angkor Wat since there were lots of policemen there who just kept telling me to go away, but after a few hours I got bored of looking at ancient piles of bricks so headed back to the guesthouse about lunchtime.

I took some small dirt tracks back where I encountered my first collision of the trip. Two cows were having a scrap at the side of the road and for some reason I just rode past intrigued, until one decided to bolt across the road in front of me. I clipped his arse and fell off, not going too fast though. Stupid bovine, stupid me.

My plan was to set off early the next day back into Thailand then down to Ko Chang where I could meet up with George and Morgan again for New Years.

It was a straight road to the border, about 160km. There were lots of policemen stood along the road which I thought was strange. Maybe they were trying to stop me from escaping. It was not long before I hit a road block. The king is visiting until 11am someone explained. Bugger, a 3 hour wait. Once again Garmin came to the rescue and showed a 40km detour along some back roads. I set off down some rubbish tracks through tiny villages. 1 1/2 hours later and I emerged back onto the main road, just behind the opposite road block where people were waiting looking rather frustrated. I waved at the policemen and set off again to the border.

I was successfully stamped out of Cambodia and didn't bother going to Cambdoian customs. I just rode straight into Thailand where I was stopped at a checkpoint. The guys here were ridiculously friendly, arranging the insurance that I was supposed to have for £5 for 3 months and sorting out the required import docs. I was there probably 2 hours and they gave me bottles of water and some food.

Once legally back in Thailand, this time only with a 15day visa I set off south to Ko Chang. I arrived at the ferry terminal as the sun was setting, thinking that I might have missed the last ferry, luckily I hadn't. I found the huts George and Morgan were staying in together with Elvis, another KTM rider who I met back in India and a couple from Europe who have driven their 4x4 here through Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China.

Anyway we got drunk that night and since there were no more rooms available I kipped in Morgan's hammock. Here there are the usual things to do, beaches to lie on, beer to drink, food to eat. I don't feel as restless as I did in Laos either, I could quite happily do nothing all day here.

Christmas in Cambodia

2009-12-25T12:59:00.001Z

Don Det is a curious island. The locals have built some fantastic little wooden bungalows for the tourists, yet are still determined to live in half finished shacks with their entire family. They do all have satelite tv stolen from Thailand though!

Don Det is now home to the Australian Baker. He runs a bakery. The slogan is 'anything can happen at the bakery'. His banana and chocolate donuts and Foccacia bread have earnt him the status of 'the devil' from me. We tried to enquire how he ended up baking donuts on an island in the middle of the Mekong. He replied that it was a long story. I like to think that he was either abducted by aliens or woke up in the bakery after a stag party and decided to stay. Maybe we will never know.

I spent my time on Don Det dossing in a hammock and exploring the island with the Fairy girl from Brighton. Once Carlos left I had the largest vehicle there but it's healthier and a bit more fun to explore on one of the many bicycles for hire. I met a guy from the UK who had the idea of getting a canoe and powering up the Mekong. I was tempted to sell my bike and attempt it. Turns out its not possible due to the numerous waterfalls which cause obstructions.

Since there were quite a few Europeans on the island, Christmas was celerated on the 24th. The Australian had managed to get hold of a goat with the plan of a spit roast. The goat must have been privy to these plans and promtly escaped. The locals brought two more goats which were duly slaughtered and eaten.

Some Israelis decided to celebrate Christmas by roasting a Pig on a BBQ on the beach. The Irony was lost on a lot of people.

After 3 days of doing not very much and eating donuts at every opportunity I decided to leave. It happened to be Christmas day. My plan was to cross the border into Cambodia, get a ferry across the Mekong, then get lost in the Jungle on my way to Siem Reap.

The border was pretty straight forwards. Laos customs just stamped my carnet without looking at my bike then waved me over the border. On the Cambodian side I had to have a health-check under an umbrella at the side of the road before being allowed any further. The doctor instructed me to 'stabilise my temperature' before poking a thermometer in my ear. Despite my sweating in the sun it seemed to be stable enough and I was declared pig/swine/Sars flu free. He then demanded $1US for his efforts. I paid because I've never had a private health-check before and thought it would look good on my CV.

I then got to go and get my Cambodian visa. Whislt waiting I was sent to customs. I asked nicely if I could please bring my motorbike in. The official in a large armchair asked to see my Carnet, looked a bit confused, then handed it back and said yes. Best customs official in the world.

Once I had my visa I needed to get it stamped. I had to pay 1$US for this which I did not have since I had given all my short change to the doctor and the guys handing out visas. They didnt seem fussed and stamped anyway. This was corruption in its laziest form.

30 minutes after turning up and I was free to do a little wheelie and zip down into Cambodia.

At the first city I found petrol but no ferry as promised. I rode up and down the bank of the Mekong trying to find it with no joy. I then decided to head back to the main road so took a gravel path that eventually became a very small sand track. It went on for 10km back to the main road. There was lots of sand and I managed to perfect riding sideways whilst my legs flailed uselessly. The guy who was following me on his scooter with his 80 year old mother on the back must have been impressed.

Upon finding the highway I rode about 400km till I got here. Some small town next to the Mekong. It feels homely because there are lots of old Germans and Prostitutes. It seems to be a good combination in South East Asia.

Anyway I'm sat in a rather nice Cafe covered in moths and have just had a nice steak and numerous beers. Maybe it was a good thing I couldn't find the ferry and get lost in the Jungle, then again, maybe not.

Merry Christmas.

Lounging in Laos

2009-12-23T04:57:00.001Z

The Thai side of the border was very easy considering how long it had taken us to get our bikes in. They just stamped us out and waved us across 'Friendship Bridge 2' across the Mekong. In Laos we had to buy visas for $35US then figure out how to get our bikes in. We had none of the paperwork they were expecting, so had to speak to the chief of customs who agreed that we should use our Carnet de Passages. His minions didn't seem to fully comprehend his instructions and had no idea what to do. We got pretty frustrated with them until one of them walked past with a huge bag of donuts. We quickly bought them all and sat scoffing whilst the customs guys looked confused. Once we were full of sugar and feeling better we managed to get them to do what they had to do and could ride off into Laos.

We set off to the capital, Vientiene, about 20km away, to decide whether we should stay there or keep going. The city was pretty relaxed and felt like a communist version of Paris spread out along the Mekong. We had a coffee in a quaint cafe and decided to push on. The road was calling.

The main highway through Laos is in reasonably good condition, although chickens, goats, cows and dogs make it pretty interesting sometimes. We stopped at a small shop in a village for a drink. About 30 kids suddenly appeared and sat watching and giggling. If they had sung it would have been like the Sound of Music. An old drunk man kept pestering us about the bikes and giggling then taking photos with his cameraphone. A man with no hands turned up and I got Carlos to roll him a cigarette. The message was clear though, with all the unexploded bombs thanks to the American secret war of the 70's there would be no offroading, berry picking or sneaky wees in the bush here or in Cambodia. Thankyou America for ruining yet another country.

We stopped in a gueshouse a little further down the road and tried to get to the Mekong to take a photo of the beautiful sunset over the river. We failed and I ended up with a rather nice photo of the sunset down the road. We found an ATM where Carlos gave me some money back in repayment of what I had leant him. He gave me 150,000 Kip. I thought this was equivalent to about 180 Euros. It turned out to be about 18 Euros. Sneaky Spanish!

The next day we rode 561km, crossing half of Laos. The road followed the Mekong, but from a distance so it was not always visible. The scenery was very reminiscent of when I was last in Northern Australia, I guess theyre at the same Lattitude. We stopped that night in Pakse, a small town next to the Thai border, and went out for some food. Laos is so laid back and relaxed compared to Thailand that we had to go and find the waiter, I think he was sleeping. I orderred a burger, when it came I ate it in 3 bites. It was tiny. Stupid French influence, although I quite like the baguettes everywhere and amazing pastries!

Since we had crossed Laos in 2 days straight, I decided to go to the 4000 Islands, essentially a cluster of islands in the middle of the Mekong on the Laos / Cambodian border. We went to the largest island, Don Khong (Donkey Kong) aboard a small ferry that we had to haggle for a decent price. The ferry was about 50 years old and powered by a smaller boat strapped to the side. It sat at a funny angle in the water.

Carlos is not impressed with the ferry.

The island was about 18km long and 5km wide. We found a guesthouse and a Fairy girl from Brighton who plays the Eucalaylie. We all rode across the island to watch the sunset on the opposite shore. Curious young kind surrounded our bikes. The next day I wanted to visit the next islands along which were smaller and more touristy with the view of possibly spending Christmas there. We got the ferry back to the mainland and set off to first find an ATM. That took several hours. My GPS claimed there was an ATM in the middle of a field. I need to stop following the bloody thing.

Eventually, after getting enough money, we tried to get across to the island, Don Det. There was no big ferry this time, and we had to ride up and down the shore trying to find a small boat suitable for our bikes. What we found was essentially two canoes strapped together with decking across the top and an outboard motor on a stick. Perfect. Again we haggled the price down a bit to about 10 Euros for 2 bikes and rode up a plank where we could perch on the deck.

Onboard, eventually.

The landing beach.

On the other side of the waterway we were deposited on a beach. It felt a bit like Saving Private Ryan, only confused tourist looked down from the overlooking cafes and wondered who the idiots were. The sidestand on my bike almost gave way when we were getting Carlos' bike off. Luckily none of us ended up in the Mekong.

I'm currently staying in a small hut occupied by a bed, a mosquito net and a light bulb together with numerous insects, frogs and lizards. There is a hammock on the front porch and i'm paying about 2 Euros a night. I've decided to spend Christmas here rather than race across Cambodia. I'll try my hand at this relaxing lark, I'm not very good at it. There are a lot of gap year guys here looking to 'find themselves'. They spend the day drinking beer and lazing in tubes in the Mekong. I woke up early to see Carlos off as he races South then spent my day repairing a puncture.

After Christmas I want to ride through Cambodia to Siem Riep, or Angkor Wat, the massive abandoned ancient city. I've been told of a dirt track that goes practically all the way there through the jungle. It took 2 guys on a moto taxi 10 hours. Should be easy for a KTM.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Some Mothers Do Have Em'

2009-12-20T11:58:00.003Z

From Pai we completed the Mae Hong Son Loop. I'm not really very good at describing roads, all that I can say is that it was like a 1000km racetrack. My tyres were once again rounded when we completed it. The last night of the loop we stopped in a very nice guesthouse next to a river. There was limited parking space so I was forced to park in a bush. The next morning I had a small colony of giant red ants who had decided to make my radiator home.

We nipped back to Chiang Mai for one night so that we could plan our next step. We both wanted to spend Christmas somewhere nice, and since Carlos didn't have much time, yet still wanted to visit Laos and Cambodia, we decided to try to get to a beach in Southern Cambodia.

We set off East towards one of the border crossings with Laos through some fantastic mountain scenery down some very good small roads. Even the worse roads in Thailand are better than the best roads in India. They were only bad because they were being made into new roads and had a perfectly flat loose gravel covering. Feeling confident, I managed to drift a couple of times.

As it was getting dark we were in the middle of nowhere. Something flew out of a bush and hit me on my knee. I think it was a bird or a bat. We soon found a small town. There were no hotels but a grass common ground in front of a temple with a very randy dog where I asked a monk whether it would be ok to camp. It was, and we rode a couple of hundred metres to a restaurant to find some food. Since no one spoke English, and my Thai is limited to 'hello', 'thankyou', 'chicken' and 'pad thai', we had little choice in what was given to us - it turned out to be some rather nice instant noodles with fresh chicken and bok choy - delicious.

Afterwards we set off back the 200 metres to our camping ground. For some reason, Carlos decided to instigate colonial rules and rode on the wrong side of the road - to date he still doesn't know why. The oncoming truck that he collided with didn't agree. Thankfully they were not going too fast. Damage to the truck included a rather nice dent in the middle of the bumper. Carlos' mudguard was destroyed and his forks were twisted. We also found later that one of his brake disks seems to be a little out. The problem now was how to handle the tiny angry wife of the truck driver. Since we did not have insurance (3rd Party Insurance is mandatory in Thailand, but no one will insure a non Thai registered bike - Catch 22!) we could either bluff it using our European cover, or pay up. Lots of people turned up to watch this spectacle and the word 'Fallang' was mentioned many times. Thankfully a lady who spoke very good english was amongst them who informed us that they wanted 150,000 Baht for the damage. This equated to about 3000Euros. Yikes! After much further converstation it turned out there had been an error in translation and the sum was 15,000 Baht - 300 Euros, Better. I leant Carlos some money meaning he could avoid being lynched or a having to spend night in a police cell. I drafted up a piece of paper saying that the damage had been paid for and the matter was now closed and had both parties and a witness sign it - I felt like a UN amabassador.

We pushed Carlos' bike to the temple grounds and set to work making it roadworthy. After a good nights sleep, punctuated by various dog fights, we finished the work and could set off. We soon reached the Mekong and found two border crossings into Laos we weren't expecting. One was a brand new bridge not listed in Lonely Planet, the other was just a shallow river crossing. On the Thai side people sat in small shops selling every convenience imaginable. On the Laos side a woman washed her families underpants in the river.

The Unofficial road in Laos.

Whilst passing through a small village further down the road, I spotted a rather nice looking convenience shop and knowing how much Carlos likes to hang around drinking cola and smoking, decided to have a puncture on my front tyre. I repaired it in record time and once again we set off.

A little further down the road and at approximately 80kph and the master link on my chain decided it had had enough. The first I knew of this was when my engine cut and everything suddenly went silent... I knew what had happened and expected to slowly drift to a stop, instead things got interesting rather quickly. The chain locked up my back wheel and I came to a rather abrupt, yet stylish sideways skidding stop. Amazingly I had managed to stay upright so I turned to grin at Carlos. We dismounted to inspect the damage. Indeed the master link had dissapeared and a short search yielded no result so we made the decision to tow my bike with Carlos' about 1km back down the road to find a mechanic. My front tyre had also sprung another leak to make things interesting - I think the chain might have flicked forwards to do that.

The other way to stop whilst doing 80kph.

At the mechanics and they immediately knew what to do, cutting a link out and using one of the existing pins to fix the chain, only problem now was that it was too tight, so we ground the slot on the swing arm to allow the wheel to sit further forwards. Problem solved. I also got them to properly patch my tyres since I had had enough for one day. Total cost of work, about 4 Euros.

Once again we tried our luck at getting to the Laos border and made it to Nong Kai shortly after dark, a town seemingly exclusively populated with prostitutes and old Germans. We would head across the border the next day.

I am now in Laos and can't be bothered typing up much more so will update with further details of my adventures at a later date.

The Times They Are A Changin

2009-12-14T14:49:00.002Z

I've just registered www.ktmdunk.co.uk, it will be easier to tell people that than the blogspot caffuffle, plus I can get stickers for the bike. I plan to just link it to here, so nothing should really change much. Just thought I'ld let you know.

Burning Japs, Tiger Brothels, Crazy Finns and Thai Biker Gangs - Thailand in a nutshell

2009-12-13T04:48:00.003Z

So, we left Bangkok late one afternoon, when I can't remember, maybe a week ago. We headed out of the city on one of the highways we weren't allowed on but all the police were elsewhere. Once out of Bangkok, things quickly became more rural and we found some small tarmaced roads through the countryside. There are literally millions of small lanes around Thailand, all of them in good condition. You could spend weeks lost on them since they don't appear on any map or GPS.

We were heading to Kanchanaburi and the infamous 'Death Railway Bridge', an arrived shortly after it got dark, partly due to getting lost and partly because we keep setting off too late. The main street was full of Expat bars and hotels. We found somewhere to eat then a room and I went for a walk to take a photo of the bridge by night. I was unaware that for a week or two at the end of November/ early December, they have a big sound light and firework show. I turned up just as it had started and was rather reluctant to pay the 100B entry fee not knowing what was going on since everything was in Thai. I eventually succumbed and was show to a seat. The show was extravagant to say the least. Although I didn't have a clue what was being said, I gathered it told the story of the building of the bridge with lasers, lights and people marching up and down dressed as Japanese soldiers. At the end of the show a train filled with said soldiers rolled over the bridge before the finale - the destruction. There were fireworks, explosions, boats going up and down the river, men running around shooting guns then setting themselves on fire and throwing themselves into the water. It was all very American. I was rather glad to have seen it, but disappointed that after the show they lit the bloody thing up like Blackpool tower. Some of the softer lighting they used during the show would have been so much more appropriate.

The next morning we loaded up the bikes and headed on down to catch a glimpse during the day. I wandered along the rickety tracks on the bridge with other tourists. Suddenly a train whistled and we all had to dive for cover in one of the alcoves on the bridge whilst it came over. There was no railing and a rather long drop. Health and safety nuts would love it.

Back at the bike and random Thai tourists would come up to take a photo of themselves with my tigers. At one point I was caught by a family of 6 who all wanted an individual photo of me with their 6 individual cameras. None of them seemed to care who I was.

Our plan was to set off North to Chiang Mai, since Carlos does not have as much time as me and we were enjoying riding together. Once again we had set off late so were caught out at dusk once again a bit far from our destination of Tak. We decided to head to a nearby campsite in my Gps. 30 minutes later and we were in the middle of a jungle, in the dark, covered in mosquitos. We unanimously decided that it would probably be unwise to camp here and pressed on to a nearby city where we found a cheap room in a very nice wooden hotel. We even got a complimentary welcome pack, including the usual towel, complimentary soap, water, tea, coffee, noodles and .... complimentary condom... maybe we stayed in the wrong type of hotel.

We set off the next day to Chiang Mai, at first cruising on the highway. It's great to be able to travel at a decent speed without the fear of cows, monkeys, rickshaws and lorries hurling themselves at you. Despite what some people say, I find Thai drivers extremely courteous, especially when it comes to motorbikes. We stopped at a couple of petrol stations and 7-11's on the way. The girls who worked there giggled and waved at us. With all the conveniences, Thailand is a bit like America, but more friendly and less obese.

On the way to Chiang Mai we stumbles across Road 106. The previous video should suffice to elaborate. Carlos also created one, it should be over at www.sinewan.com. I'll link it when it appears.

In Chiang Mai we met up with Viviana, who has been stalking Carlos since Rishikesh in India. We went to the night food market, perched atop a rickshaw, not because the rickshaw was full, just because we wanted to. Every type of food imaginable was available at the market whilst a lone girl on a stage danced to some tradional music. Everyone ignored her. Later, kareoke started on the stage. Viviana and I sang New York New York to a not very enthusiastic Thai crowd.

The next day we decided to head off to, what I can only describe as, a Tiger Brothel. Essentially, the more you pay, the younger the tiger that you can pose with. Yes! You actually are able to pet and pose IN THE SAME CAGE as these man eating beasts. Most of us were apprehensive at first. I was, especially since I had spent 3 days in the jungle in India trying to spot a wild beast and knowing that a tiger can never really be tame. They are trained from birth not to 'play' with humans, but playing (gouging with their razor sharp claws) with each other is ok. It's a bit like Jurrasic Park with all the electric fences. At one point whilst we were in the cage, one of the 140kg adult tigers became rather engrossed in a 2 year old blonde boy on the other side of a fence. I've never seen an animals face just scream 'I WANT TO EAT YOU' before!

Although it was a fantastic experience, I'm still not fully convinced that it's right.

The next day Carlos and I went off on a little bike ride to the Phu Ping temple. I giggled because its pronounced Pooping. I enjoyed asking for directions.

We continued onwards since the GPS showed that the road eventually became a dirt track and continued in a small loop. We passed through jungle villages on a very steep track through the mountains. We met up with some mountain bikers who were rather surprised to see a KTM and Honda Varadero up there, let alone that we had brought them from Europe.

The track eventually led to a fantastic lake/reservoir with little huts on either side. Since we had essentially snuck in the back way we didn't have to pay the 20B entrance fee as I found out the next day. We had some food and napped in a hut. Carlos said it would have been extremely romantic if I wasnt there.

The night before my birthday we went out to celebrate. We became a rather mixed group from numerous nationalities and at midnight I had happy birthday sung in English, German, Italian, Thai and, my personal favourite, a personal rendition with a microphone in Finnish, by a guy who kept fishing cans of beer out of his rucksack all night and talking loudly about mushrooms. Most of the time we had no idea what he was saying but it kept us amused.

The next eve was a big biker meet in Chiang Mai so we popped along to have a look. There were mainly millions of Harleys there - the Thais love em. There was live music and lots of drinking. We were invited to sit with a biker group from Southern Thailand who we bumped into on the road the other day. They were fantastic hosts and we had a great time, especially since they were really interested in seeing the Helmet Cam videos from offroading, mainly because I stacked the bike 3 times.

Despite there only being 2 KTM's at the meet, mine and a 590 supermoto, I managed to find a stall that sold KTM T-shirts.

It was a great night. The live bands were apparently very famous. Later in the night a girl came over to our table and posed for pictures with everyone. We asked each other whether she was famous. She replied to us, in perfect English with and Australian accent, that yes, she was pretty famous around here, then stormed off. We still don't know who she was.

We are now in Pai. The first stop around the Mae Hong Son loop. 1000 odd km of perfect tarmac with 1800 odd twists and turns on it. Who ever counted them had nothing better to do. The road is fantastic, possibly better than anything the alps has to offer. Now I need breakfast so Adios!

Enjoy...

2009-12-09T17:33:00.002Z

...the culmination of 6 hours late night hi-jinx with linux' crazy codecs and a woefully underpowered netbook.

Oh and the road was amazing too!

I've Gone Soft

2009-12-05T09:45:00.003Z

Yesterday I Carlos gave me a lift to Red Baron. They had finished his bike, changed his tyres and oil and repaired his leaking fork seals.

When I arrived they had already checked my valves, repaired the leaking slave clutch cyclinder and changed the oil and filters. I set to work dismantling my wiring loom whilst my assigned mechanic set to work dismantling and rebuilding my frame. He did an incredible job, grinding down and redrilling sheared bolts and bodged previous repairs from Pakistan. Later it had transpired that they had done the oil change wrong (the reason why I kept insisting that I would help work on the bike) so we had to redo. When it was time to start the engine, and he saw that the starter motor didn't work, it took him 5 minutes with a multimeter to figure out the problem and modify the wiring loom with a small piece of wire. I was amazed since I had spent literaly hours pondering over the wiring diagram in a bemused state wondering where to start.

He made all sorts of small modifications to my bike, including turning my front axle on a lathe to make it easier to remove meaning I now longer have a need for the little bit of wood from the end of a broom that I carry everywhere to bash it out. He also modified my wiring loom to give more power to the starter motor and, after much explanation, made an addition to my radiator to give it a greater capacity - his insistent idea, not mine.

When it was time to fit new brake pads, I discovered that I have carried the wrong size all the way from England, thus I shall have to wait till the KTM dealers in Malaysia. Typical.

The total cost for 3 days work came to about £65. Normally I would pay that for 2 hours labour in the UK. I had to ask whether they had made a mistake.

Last night we went out drinking to celebrate, for a change. I lost a bet playing 'spot the Ladyboy' and am now sporting a rather attractive bright orange dreadlock. On my walk back to the hostel, about 2am, I was stopped by a policeman on a motorbike. Clearly he thought a man with a peculiar hair piece was up to no good. I decided to be polite and asked for his officer number and ID. He seemed taken aback that I would ask but complied, then asked for mine. I showed him my driving licence. He then asked to search me, I knew he was after drugs (Marc already has experience of the Thai police's determination to arrest people for possession) so let him search me. He prodded and poked and produced a tube of colgate toothpaste from my top pocket which I had just bought from a conveniently placed 7-11. He looked at me extremely suspiciously for this heinous offence then let me go. I think, thus far, I have been stopped by the police an average of once every two days. It won't be long till I have to pay a bribe for some trivial, self conceived riding offence.

I now have a pair of Ortlieb soft panners that I bought from www.k-trade-international.com. The owner, Uwe, was extremely helpful in trying to get the straps extended to fit my rack. Since it is a holiday, we were unable to find anywhere to do it, so I shall get it done in a few days in Chaing Mai. For now I will ride with the bags on either side of my seat, giving better weight distribution.

Tomorrow we will probably head off, first the the Bridge over the River Kwai (pronounced Kway, NOT Kwii) then further north.

Banging Around Bangkok

2009-12-03T16:45:00.003Z

I was waiting till tomorrow to start working on my bike but Red Baron have started work without me and already cleaned my bike - it glistens, but probably not for long. They've also checked my valves. Hopefully I will be able to get most of the other things on my list done tomorrow before the public holiday on Saturday for the Kings birthday.

I've managed to find a shop that sells Ortlieb soft luggage (better for the bike offroad) so plan to invest in a set of those rather than the Pakistani 'Pouratechs' that I currently have - lesson learnt : Invest in decent stuff that you will be happy with before you leave rather than bodging your way around the World. My only concern is that they will not be as secure as the Aluminium panniers but I am also going to get a pac-safe locking system for my important stuff and will try to get a tankbag suitable for a KTM too, most things are too big without adequate fixings. They have KTM dealers in Malaysia so I may have to wait till then...

I have sorted a lot of my luggage out and reckon I have managed to decrease the crap I'm carrying 'just in case' by half. Instead of having 2 tool boxes and a tool bag, I have attempted to fit most things into a bum bag I bought, meaning that if I decide to go off road with no luggage, I can just take the essentials with me, or at least that's the idea. Now that I have almost repaired pretty much everything possible on the bike, I have a very good idea of what tools I need and what I don't.

I really feel at home in the guesthouse we have found. It's run by a Thai family with 'Mama' (grandma) calling the shots. She seems to approve of our bikes though.

The food here is absolutely amazing. Every 10 metres down a street is a small restaurant or barrow selling some awesome smelling goods. Every 20 metres is a 7-11. There are so many here that you can often be stood in a 7-11 on one side of the street looking at another on the other side.

Even the most basic stuff is much better than anything I ever had in India. I was really looking forwards to some good curries, but the best I had was a Jalfrezi in Pakistan. I had some noodle soup here the other day and had to spend 10 minutes picking out chillies, lemon grass and ginger with chopsticks before I could even start eating. I am slowly getting fatter and fatter. If I'm lucky i'll end up becoming one of those fat ex-pat old men who hangs around with a young Thai girl on each arm. I need to leave Bangkok soon.

I find it amazing that there is such a huge culture difference even though India is not so far away and the same resources exist in both countries. Here, people know that they don't have to work all the time to enjoy life. Over there, it's chaos.

I think that is all for my musings tonight.

I can't think of a witty title / catchphrase that vaguely describes the contents of this post at this precise moment in time.

2009-12-01T07:44:00.004Z

So we returned to the Airport the next day, met our man who got us our passes then passed us onto one of his 'friends' who would show us to customs. We shook hands then walked off without them since I already knew where we had to go.

Upon arrival at customs we were eventually pointed to the right desk where a woman looked at our paperwork then sent us off for photocopies of various things. When we returned we had a problem. Since the paperwork for the shipping shipping of 3 bikes on 3 carnets was done in my name this would not do. We would have to get the paperwork modified to be in 3 names for 3 bikes with 3 carnets.

Off we went on a 2km walk to the Thai Air building where they didnt know what to do at first, then spent an hour doing what we needed. We then needed to go and get the storage bill split into 3, again they didn't know what to do and spent an hour doing it. In the end nothing was done so we returned to customs where the lady told us it was still a problem. I took the paper off her and put it in my pocket and told her that it wasn't a problem if it didn't exist. This seemed to make her happy and we were able to get a big pile of paper each which we signed in numerous places. No one asked for that piece of paper again.

Then it was time to traipse back off to the holding area to get the bikes. Upon arrival the guy in charge didn't know what to do with us so sent us to the Thai Air office upstairs, they sent us back downstairs where the same guy told us to go to another office where we got lots more stamps and signed the same paperwork again. Now we just had to get the bikes checked.

We now had a helpful guy who sorted out a fork lift to take the crates to the other side of the customs zone 1km away to be checked. When we all managed to get there we went into an office where they didn't know what to do. They told us we had to all go back, with the crates, to the other side of the zone, so off we went. At least I got a ride on a forklift.

Back where we had originally started we now went into another office where a man in a red t-shirt took each of our papers in turn, carefully removed all the staples, reshuffled them, then stapled them together again. We then sat in front of a short sighted old lady with a stamp for 30 minutes. She seemed very reluctant to stamp anything. I was also getting very bored so decided to wizz around the office on the swivelly office chair they had given me. Clearly this idea of fun had never appealed to anyone there and was greeted with much mirth.

Eventually we were assigned a young lad to watch us as we uncrated our bikes and made a lot of mess and noise. Lots of Thai's watched us but unlike the Indians it was a much more friendly atmosphere. We could even share jokes.

With the checks over we could get on with rebuilding our bikes. Marc stood on a nail, Carlos dropped his bike and everyone laughed at my tigers and squeaky toy horn. 3 hours later and we were ready to leave. In all, 7 hours doing paperwork and 3 hours rebuilding the bikes and we could hit Bangkok.

First we got petrol then tried to negotiate the 30km back to the guesthouse without going on any highways or bridges, since bikes aren't allowed on them.

1km from our destination, after taking a wrong turn, we failed and ended up going up a sliproad and onto a bridge. There was a police officer waiting for us. I was a bit miffed since there was no sign saying bridge or no bikes, also he stopped us in, what I thought, was a dangerous place, where cars were coming up the sliproad to join traffic. After playing the 'keep repeating where I'm going over and over again' routine, he demanded my international driving license and wanted us to turn around, again stupidly dangerous. I decided to leg it and made it back to the tourist area unhassled, despite a scare where I thought they had mobilised a couple of big BMW's after me, but I pretended that I was lost and nipped down some side streets. Carlos and Marc had to pay a small bribe for him to let them ride over the bridge.

After speaking to a British ex-pat, the done thing is to always have 100Baht (£2) in your international driving license and just to hand it over. This even works for speeding at 2 1/2times the posted limit and anything else they decide to stop you for.

Here is a sample of things to come with a short clip from 'Helmet Cam's' first test outing whilst on the way back to the guesthouse. It will be better during the day and also when I sing silly songs. Some editing also wouldn't go amiss.

When we arrived in the tourist area on the bikes we were surrounded by Thai girls who proclaimed that they 'loved us long time'. I tried to guess which ones used to be men.

My bike is now at the garage, I have to wait till Friday to go and start work, there's quite a bit to be done, but tomorrow is a Full Moon Party and I have Mr Mastercard to exercise some more as well as some artsy photos to take.

Toy Boys

2009-11-29T11:00:00.003Z

What an incredible city Bangkok is!

I went shopping at a bike shop and bought a decent back protector, enduro gloves and a nifty little camera that I can attach to my helmet/bike/taxi/stray dog for awesome action shots. I also bought a decent Digital SLR camera this afternoon, a Canon EOS 500D, something I should have brought from the start, so standby for some incredibly over the top brilliant photos.

Yesterday when we went out looking for the bike shops, we found Red Baron. There are not very many big bikes here in Thailand, but those that have them go here. CBR's, R1's, Hayabusas, Ninjas! It's good to see some decent machinery. They even have a KTM superduke so I a really looking forwards to getting my bike there and letting them just go to town on it. Mr Mastercard is having a wonderful time here!

Carlos and I found the MBK last night. The Mall of Bangkok. I considered getting a new mobile phone but was seriously gobsmacked by the number available. I think I'll stick with Oli's trusty old Nokia 6100 for now, despite having people laugh at me for having a crappy phone. They have the last laugh when I bang it against the wall with no repercussions though!

When we exited the mall we managed to walk straight into the first Siam International Bike Convention. There were probably about 200 Harley Davidsons there. I would have loved to have taken my bike there for some attention but sadly theyre still in customs. At least I got some free stickers after showing some people my photos.

Last night I checked the status of our shipment and found that our bikes have arrived so this morning, Sunday, we headed on down to the airport to try to get them. After eventually finding the cargo place we wandered through the security checkpoint unchecked only to be turned away 1 km later at another one. We had to wait for a guard to get a 4x4 to take us back to the reception. Here I had to go alone with a guy, whom I'm convinced we'll end up having to pay, to get the paperwork. Customs was closed but at least I got to see the crates and get half the paperwork done (i think!). Tomorrow will be an endurance event.

Marc and I went to a Thai boxing event this afternoon on the tip off of a guy at the airport. It was really cool to see. We managed to get some seats in a VIP type area for which some guy kept asking money for, even after I had paid what he wanted in the first place. I just told him to bugger off.

We managed to appear live on Thai television because we were sat behind some sort of important person who the film cameras kept turning too at the end of every round. I'm sure the people of Thailand loved seeing a scruffy Englishman in a tanktop giving the peace sign every 3 minutes. The latest photos (from my new camera) are from said event. I think I'm a real David Bailey just because I change the setting to monochrome!

Lost in Bangkok

2009-11-27T11:25:00.003Z

Yesterday we turned up at Kathmandu airport cargo depot to send our bikes on their way.

Our crates took some time to arrive so we amused ourselves playing football until someone got annoyed with us keep kicking the ball at them whilst they were trying to unload cargo and confiscated it.

Then some soldiers with guns turned up with a cameraman to pose with us and take photos. It was rather weird.

Eventually the crates turned up and we could set about dismantling our bikes. Marc went first and we all debated the best way of removing the front wheel whilst it was on the centre stand on a crate bottom then lowering it down. Since Marc's bike weighs about 230kg it took a few of us.

Mine was easier, weighing in at only 150kg and we saved Carlos' bike till last, his weighs a mighty 250kg+.

Fuel out, battery disconnected, front wheel off, tyres down, handlebars and cockpit off and my bike fitted very snugly into the premeasured crate.

We then had to push and lift the crates through an xray machine and into the holding area. Although the Nepalis are small they are surprisingly strong. Marc stood by with his camera ensuring we had a video record. We couldn't have moved the crates without him.

With the bikes boxed we returned to the office to pay. Since my volumetric measurement was bigger than the mass I paid about $575USD for my shipping together with $230USD for my air ticket.

Having arrived in Bangkok, culture shock is an apt word. Compared to Pakistan, India and Nepal everything is much cleaner, the roads are much better and so is the driving. We rode to our guest house in a taxi travelling at 120kph down a perfect motorway whilst listening to country music.

We all agree that we feel lost without the bikes though. Despite the mechanical trouble and stress mine gives me it must be truly boring to be a backpacker. We should be able to pick them up on Monday Yn Shallah. I'm gonna spend the weekend shopping for new goodies. Woo!

A Little Day Trip To China

2009-11-25T08:10:00.004Z

As I previously mentioned, Carlos and I had decided to head off further East for a couple of days, hopefully being able to catch a glimpse of Mount Everest.

We set of late, about 10am, thinking that it would only be a couple of hours riding to Jiri, touted by Wikipedia (I don't have a guidebook for Nepal and Wiki got me through University) as 'the traditional starting point for the trek to Everest'.

The traffic trying to escape from Kathmandu was pretty busy. The roads in the city are not too good. There are plans to build a 6 lane ring road. Eventually we found the main road going out of the city and pretty soon we were happily winding out way through the countryside on good tarmac. We both needed petrol pretty soonish, since before we fly the bikes we need to drain the tanks, hence had run the tanks dry on the way to Kathmandu.

The road eventually got smaller and smaller and turned into a dirt track going up a mountain. 'This is a funny main road' I thought. The only other traffic were a few other bikes. I was thoroughly surprised at Carlos' bike being able to make it since it's predominantly a road bike with a dual sports rear tyre and road front and weighs probably not far from 300kg fully loaded, but he did well.

We stopped for a coke and had a fantastic view of snowcapped mountains on the horizon. Local folk informed us that a nearby town had petrol so we optimistically set off. Upon arrival we were pointed to the convenience store for the entire village who did indeed have petrol. It cost twice the normal rate and was available in 1 litre water bottles. I bought 1 litre and Carlos 2 to see us down the mountain and to a petrol station, which we eventually found after discovering the tarmacked main road. We had fantastic fun overtaking all the small bikes on some great twisties.

We set off once again on fantastic roads towards Jiri. The road was small but mostly in very good condition with very little traffic. It wound alongside mountains and through small villages for 100km all the time offering fantastic views of the Himalayas.

We arrived shortly after dark in Jiri, mainly because I had sustained a puncture on my front tyre, which I changed under the watchful eyes of 10 local Nepalis. One young lad was amazed that I carried a piece of wood with me to knock out the front axle.

We stayed in a hotel where I had buffalo chow mien for tea and debated what to do the next morning. It turned out, after speaking to a local guide who was determined to show us the local cheese factory, that just to see Everest involved a 2 1/2 day trek. Since we only had 1 day, this wasn't possible, so a shorter trek would have been better.

The next morning at breakfast we were still undecided. I casually mentioned that it would be nice to go the Chinese border. Carlos said 'let's do it', so we did.

As we were preparing to leave a crowd gathered to see us off and the hotel manager festooned us with a scarves around our necks for good luck. The first thing I though was 'ooh, this will make a nice oil rag!', but I don't think the gods would like that so i'll try to avoid it.

We set off back the way we had come and I managed to acquire a nice big nail in my rear tyre, the first puncture in my rear so far. We stopped next to a couple of shops, conveniently located at the top of a 2600m pass where I set to work.

This time I was supervised by a lone girl, everyone else ignored us. I think they were used to people fixing their bikes there, or maybe they were just too engrossed in their card games.

I also discovered that yet another bolt had sheared and gone missing, this time it was one that secured my rear sub-frame to my main frame. At the last count I think I now have 3 out of 4 bolts holding the rear sub-frame on with 4 out of 6 bolts and a banjo strap holding my luggage rack on. One pannier is also secured using 2 tie wraps. I plan to get everything welded and sorted in Bangkok and may also ditch the hard luggage and go soft, although after seeing what is on offer from dirtshopthailand.com I may spend a lot of money on decent quality kit there rather than using the Pakistani custom made aluminium 'Poor-atech' panniers I had constructed. I repaired this breakage with the cunning use of yet another banjo strap.

The road to the border was also fantastic, with a few rough bits. Children waved at us as we wound our way through villages. At the border we rode straight through a gate and parked the bikes with the intention of trying to get across to China (Tibet) for an hour or so, just to say we had. After wandering round the various unorganised offices for a bit I was informed that you can go straight to the border, the friendship bridge, where there is a strategically drawn red line in the middle. You can walk up to the line, look at it and gawp at the other side, but not take photos. We would not be allowed into China since we did not have visas. I went and had a look whilst Carlos looked after the bikes. The last guard on the bridge was rather concerned as to why my hands were so dirty, so I explained that I had a KTM and he let me through.

I wandered up to the the red line. On the far side of the bridge Chinese soldiers stood smartly at attention dressed in immaculate uniforms. On the Nepali side the un-organised soldiers attempted to control a crowd of Nepali day trippers with their Chinese purchases. I returned to Carlos to let him have a gander. When he returned he said that he had sneakily gone over the red line to spend 'Seven Seconds In Tibet'. I considered returning to do the same but we decided to push on back the 100km to Kathmandu before it got dark. Besides, if I had crossed the border I would have had to add another patch to the back of my jacket, for which there is barely room for the remaining countries. I would also cause controversy by having to decide on whether to put a Tibetan flag or a Chinese or both. They also may have decided to shoot me for looking scruffy. I'll save China (Tibet) for another adventure.

A Sneaky Picture: Yes, that's China behind me!

We returned along the same fantastic roads to Kathmandu where we once again hit horrible roads and lots of traffic in the dark. About 1km from Thamel, where all the tourist hotels are, Carlos ran out of petrol, since we were once again trying to leave ourselves with the minimal amount for flying, so I syphoned some of mine amongst an inquisitive crowd. Now I have no petrol left.

We now await Marc's return so that we can crate the bikes tomorrow. I'm trying very hard not to spend much money here on the good food, beer and gadgets for sale in the shops. I shall wait till Thailand although I did buy a big Gurkha hunting knife which might have been useful in India and Carlos managed to negotiate a price for a small children's' horn from a cycle rickshaw for his bike which I want also.

Move out of my way trucks!

I will leave you with a photo of a cow with 6 legs and 2 bum holes which they paraded through the streets of Kathmandu as part of a holy procession. Rump steak anyone?

Wacky Races

2009-11-22T08:57:00.000Z

Quite a bit has happened recently here in Kathmandu. Whilst tinkering with my bike, for a change, I was approached by Marc and Carlos (a Spaniard on his way to Sydney on his Honda Varadero which I had previously spotted in Rishikesh). We managed to organise with Eagle Air a box building session at 9am the next day with the bikes to be shipped out on the 27th November at 2pm. We could fly out at 9am the same day, before the bikes which was not an ideal solution, but a solution none the less, and we trusted the manager thanks to his previous experience at shipping bikes.

To celebrate we went out and got drunk.

When we staggered out of the bar later that night we were greeted by quite a few cycle rickshaw drivers who wanted to ensure that we were safely delivered to our hotels. I decided to take advantage of this opportunity and organised a race around the block with the loser paying the price of 100 Rs to each rider.

About 10 rickshaw riders turned up wanting to take part in the competition (wanting to take our money). Somehow I managed to organise the competitors into some semblance of a start line and we each chose our desired steed.

Mine was a 60 year old man who had decided to decorate his rickshaw with an open umbrella, not the most streamlined of choices. I think he had also been smoking something something.

The race was off before the bystander I had chosen to start us off had any clue as to what was going on.

It was an intense race during which we reached some dizzying speeds.

Marc and Carlos both took the lead early and left me far behind. During the fray I ended up pushing for half of the course and lost my leatherman. Thankfully a kindhearted policeman, who had probably seen this sport before, found it and returned it to me afterwards.

One of the rickshaw peddlers lost his shoe. I don't think any policemen picked it up.

Carlos won after an intense battle during which Marc was seen to physically attack his opponents steed. Typical German.

I ended up paying. I'm still not sure why since I ended up doing most of the work.

I encourage this sport to appear at the Commonwealth games in Delhi in 2010.

Afterwards Marc and I discussed the race over a kebab then went and drank more beer with a drunk Finish guy who was convinced that Burma was possible to travel through. We didn't believe him.

I had to ask a policeman how to get back to my hostel and a rickshaw driver followed me all the way back demanding 50 Rupees.

It was an exciting night.

I tried to upload the video here but the internet here is a bit pants.

This morning we met the agent at 9:30 to get the bikes measured for the crates and to book our flights.

Afterwards we managed to find a restaurant which had bacon! They didn't have a clue what a full English breakfast was so I had to order 4 separate plates of bacon, sausage, egg, beans and toast. There is a God in Kathmandu who knows how to cure hangovers!

Marc has gone back to Pokhara to sort out some things he's having made there and Carlos and I will head East to Jiri to see Mount Everest tomorrow before returning for our customs clearance on the 26th.

INDIA - I'll Never Do It Again

2009-11-21T03:05:00.003Z

Ok then,

Sorry for not updating in a while, I've been trying to enjoy my time in India. It's not an easy thing to do. This may be a long update...

I left the relitive calm of Rishikesh to travel down to Delhi to meet my parents. The roads were as chaotic as usual so not much to report there. Delhi is a bit of a nightmare. There's a lot of traffic and road rules just don't apply. I was waiting calmly in a jam when I noticed people start to drive their cars down the segregated cycle lane at the side of the road, so I joined them. In a country with 1.5 billion people in, you have to do whatever is necessary to get ahead. This possibly explains why Indians are so arrogant. It also goes some way to explaining how they drive and why they need to overtake whatever is in front without thinking about it.

In Delhi, after meeting 'the rents', we went to have a look at the most impressive sight in the capitol city, the Red Fort. Typically, it was closed. Someone had possibly tipped them off that 'the Cartwrights are on tour'. A wander round the Old City confirmed to my Mother how horrible this place is, since it all smelt of wee. Even in the relatively posh part of town, Conaught Place, men quite happily just wizzed wherever they pleased. Together with cricket, this seems to be a national past time. Spitting is also a rather popular hobby.

The plan was to get to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. How was to be decided. My Dad wanted to travel in style in a Raj era Ambassador car. Sadly it appears that they have all been converted to CNG and thus have a range of about 20 miles.

After getting a quote from a travel agent of about 6000 Rupees for the job, we approached a random Sikh in the street. (He wasn't truly random, he was stood next to an Ambassador car)

'Can you take us to Agra?' I asked. He nodded his head in a sideways manner that in India can mean anything from 'Yes', 'No', 'Maybe', 'I Don't know' or 'Thankyou'. In fact you could probably get away with travelling around India and not even uttering a word. A nod will do. Sometimes it's like having a conversation with someone with Parkinsons disease.

After much questioning and nodding, we discovered that a driver to Agra for 'dropping dropping' would be 7 Rupees per km. This seemed a bit cheap considering it was 200km or so. After further phone calls the price of 2500 was settled on. I was rather dubious that after paying him 200Rp advance whether he would actually turn up the next morning, but someone indeed did.

I rode down to Agra whilst my parents took the car. Surprisingly it was dual carriageway for most of the way meaning that I could cruise at 80kph. Towns and cities were still as mental as ever when the road inevitably went right through them.

Upon arrival in Agra I tried to make my way to the Eastern gate where the hotel was. It turns out that vehicles aren't allowed within 500m of the Taj because of concerns over emissions damaging the stone. I turned up at the Western gate and was greeted by armed guards who turned me away. I made my way through the chaotic traffic to the Southern gate where once again I was turned away despite arguing that I could actually see my hotel 200m away and that local motorcyclists could quite happily ride through with no problems.

I turned away, determined not to have to face the suicidal traffic again, and decided to try my luck down a nearby alley. I managed to somehow manouevre through the narrow streets and ended up behind the barrier for the Eastern gate. The guards panicked and ran to tell me that I wasn't allowed there.

We visited the Taj Mahal the next day after battling our way through the touts. In an effort to avoid their constant hassling I decided to wear my Shalwar Kameez from Pakistan in order to look like a menacing Taliban Terrorist. It sort of worked. The Taj is well worth visiting, despite being filled with throngs of Indians.

The plan was then to travel seperately up to the Corbett Tiger Reserve. I knew that with the state of the traffic on the roads I wouldn't be able to make it in one day so halfway decided to camp in a field. I desperately wanted to avoid the crowds which encircle me whenever I stop for anything so carefully chose a spot in a remote cane field which was hidden from the road and surrounded on 3 sides. After setting up my tent and tinkering with the bike I heard some rustling in some nearby bushes. I heard voices and soon after 3 Indian lads emerged and wandered over. They stood exactly 2 meters away from me and stared whilst I finished tinkering as it started to rain. They were well dressed so I guessed they didn't work in the fields in the middle of nowhere that meant that they must have seen me depart from the road and purposefully come looking for me.... bastards!

Thankfully it started raining more heavily so I crawled into my tent and left them to wander home.

The next morning I awoke at sunrise, 6:30am to hear voices. The bastards had told their mates. As soon as I got out the tent I was surrounded by a crowd of over 10 who just stared and chatted amongst themselves whislt I packed away my things. It was honestly the worst start to a day that anyone could possibly imagine. I could not believe that they would think that the first thing that I would want first thing in the morning is to be surrounded by snorting and spitting Indians. The inhabitants of this country were seriously starting to irritate me.

The first thing I see upon waking up.

I stopped to eat some bananas for breakfast at a small stall at the side of the road. Once I had bought two I was surrounded by a crowd of 30. After eating said bananas in record time I was surrounded by a crowd of 50. All they do is stare but it is quite intimidating on my own. If I had stayed 30 seconds longer I would have blocked the road.

I arrived at the hotel next to the Corbett Reserve later that morning. As soon as I arrived my bike short circuited somewhere and the alarm started going off meaning that I had to spend 30 mintutes trying to fix it in the rain.

The next morning we were up bright an early to take a 4 hour elephant ride through the jungle in search of tigers and other wildlife. As we set off in the soft dawn light two monkeys were fornicating on top of a nearby building. Sadly I missed trying to take a photo of this atmospheric moment.

The hotels resident elephant, Laxmi, trundled as elegantly as an elephant laden with 3 Cartwrights can through the jungle and we were treated to glimpses of wild deer, various birds, huge spiders and tiger footprints, but no tigers. I took some fantastic blurred photos, the success of which has prompted me to buy a decent digital SLR in Thailand.
The elephant ride was truly fantastic and definately one of the few highlights of India.

The next day we organised to be taken deep into the reserve to a jungle lodge called Dhikala. Since it was the first day of official opening for tourists and the Indians do love their paperwork, it took our guides half the day just to get a permit.

We rode into the reserve on an open top jeep, painted in camoflaged tiger stripes to confuse the animals and other tourists. We saw 3 species of deer, 2 species of monkeys and wild boar. Halfway to the rest house our driver screeched to a halt and the guide pointed deep into the jungle, 'Look, over there, Indian Eagle Owls!' We squinted through the foliage and could just make out two blobs sat in a tree about 200 metres from the road.
The next day when coming back we stopped in the same place and the guide pointed out the same owls in the same position. This time he called them 'Fish Owls'. We were suspicious on two counts, firstly because we suspected that they were stuffed and nailed to that branch, and secondly because he had called thems something different. We thought he was just making names up as he went along.

Upon arrival at the lodge, which was reminisant of Jurrassic Park since it was surrounded by an electric fence, we filled in yet more paperwork which you have to do upon arrival at any hotel in India detailing everything about you, and were shown to our room. It had a fantastic view across some grasslands but as it was going dark there was little to be seen apart from monkeys running around and a porcupine which we saw sneaking to the toilet later that night.

The next morning we were up before dawn to go out tiger hunting. The mist made things even more exciting as we strained to see. It was not long before we found some fresh tracks but following sadly didn't prove fruitful. It was still a fantastic experience and we could add numerous birds to our wildlife tally.

When we got back to the lodge for breakfast there were 3 herds of wild elephants on the grasslands in front of us, a fantastic sight.

We set off again for another wildlife hunt and to make our way back to the hotel. Everytime we stopped the director of the park appeared nearby meaning that I had to act innnocent and hide the out of date biscuits that I had been throwing to the monkeys.

We stopped at an point overlooking a river, and once again the director was there. He pointed out to us a crocodile about 800metres down river basking on the bank. Once again it was little more than a blob even through binoculars. Later we saw a family of Ghareal (sp?), freshwater crocodiles with knobs on their noses indiginous to India, the largest of which was easily 3-4 metres in length.

Later in the afternoon, as we were setting off back, I was getting frustrated that I had not seen a tiger and was especially on edge, straining my eyes through the foliage to catch a glimpse of anything tiger shaped. As we rounded a bend I spotted something through the grass. 'Look!' I shouted. We skidded to a halt and the driver turned off the engine. We sat there in silence for 5 minutes whilst I felt rather sheepish at having spotted a log.

The closest we came to seeing tigers were the stuffed ones on display at the museum at the entrance to the park. I bought a couple of small stuffed tigers to stick on the front of the bike as mascots to scare off Indians and trucks.

A couple of days later and it was time for me to head off to Nepal whilst my parents went South to Kerala to lounge on the beach. On the way to the border a truck decided to overtake another coming towards me. I braked hard but had no where to go since I was already practically in the gutter. It missed me, just, but I had to get so far over to the verge that I clipped my pannier on a concrete bollard. My box was ripped off and I wobbled to a halt. This was the final straw for India. The c*nt had caused my frame to crack and I had to hold my pannier on with tie wraps. The w*nk*r didn't even stop. It was a good job since if he had I was quite prepared to beat him to death and I would have enjoyed it.

The border was the most unorganised ridiculous one I had come across. After crossing a dam and winding down an unpaved dirt track I went through a small cluster of houses and ended up at a barrier. I looked around. A man approached and asked if I had been through immigration or customs. I asked where they were. He pointed to a house. There were lots of people passing across but no one seemed to stop. Inside I had to fill in the usual paperwork and decided to list my occupation as 'International Man of Mystery'. Sadly it didn't fit so I had to make do with 'International Agent'. When questioned as to what job this was I replied that I sold computers worldwide. This made the official happy. It also gave me something to giggle at as I continued across the border and down a very bumpy dirt track to the Nepalese side.

I arrived at another barrier in the middle of a village. When I asked where immigration and customs were I was pointed to a green house. Inside I filled in another small sheet of paper and paid $40USD for my visa. At customs they didn't have a clue what to do with my Carnet so I had to explain how it worked and make sure they stamped the right parts.

That night I stopped in a hotel just across the border and, feeling rather miserable, attempted to repair the damage to my bike, but I had at least left India behind and the people here were more relaxed.

I set off at dawn the next day to get as far as possible to my desired destination of Nepalganj, about 200km away. It was a very relaxing ride through the morning mist. To my right the lowlands stretched away to infinity, to my left the Himalayas rose abrubtly and stretched away from East to West like a giant impenetrable wall. The road was fantastic with only the occasional bus. The local population didnt have cars, they got around using only small motorbikes and bicycles. By 10am I had reached my intended destination and decided to push on. I managed to do over 400km that day on some of the most fantastic roads I had ridden in a seemingly long time. Although bumpy tarmac, the road was perfect all the way with lots of fun twisty bits through the jungle.

I stopped in Butwal that night and when I pulled up at a hotel fell off the bike. My luggage frame gave way completely and I was unable to kick start the bike (my starter motor seems to have died completely just before I left India) Dejected I pushed the bike into the carpark, got a room and set to work trying to repair the damage using a cunningly placed banjo strap. Feeling miserable once again, and managing to have parked outside a rotary club meeting where I was surrounded by a crowd, for a change, I went in search of crisps and sugar to make me feel better. I found a shop and bought some lays and a pepsi. When I got back to my room I decided not to drink the cola since it smelt of wee. Although it was one of the things I was trying to escape from, I miss having a regular routine and security in my life. Some times all I can look forwards to is crawling into my sleeping bag and munching on a packet of biscuits.

I set off the next morning to make it the final 250km to Kathmandu, the end of the road, from where I would have to fly to Bangkok to avoid Burma. The last 50km were on rubbish roads with lots of trucks and busses. Traffic was again a bit mental in the city but I found a guesthouse who have given me a dingy room for 500Rs a night (£4).

I sat in the the corner of the garden on my own, surrounded by western tourists, and drank a beer in celebration. I got some funny disapproving looks.

I went out wandering round the city and am glad to be in civilisation again. I found a supermarket that sells everything and a restaurant where I had a steak with a ham and mushroom sauce. Hopefully they will have bacon here, I've had dreams of bacon butties.

Now I need to find a cargo agent to ship my bike to Bangkok. I have a couple of leads from people who have already done it. I decided to go into a Fed-Ex office and enquired whether they could ship motorbikes. They started in disbelief at me and called the manager who said that he would have to make enquiries.

I stopped at another cargo agent who seemed more concerned about giving me a speech saying that he wanted to do 'long time business' with me. Eventually after continuously asking I got a quote of about $900 which I had to work out myself.

I now need to find 'Eagle Eyes Cargo' who shipped a guys bike for $800 2 months ago with excellent service. I may also try to find some bacon. Hopefully when I next write I shall be in Bangkok.

Adiós.

A Jungle Safari

2009-11-05T09:16:00.004Z

The other day Marc left on his way to Nepal, leaving me wondering what to do until Sunday when I could meet my parents in Delhi. I decided to unload all the luggage from the bike and go on a little trip to a nearby nature reserve that the Lonely Planet says 'has elephants and tigers'.

It was only about 20km away so I set off about 9am. It still took me a good hour to get there thanks to motorcyclists trying to have conversations with me whilst I was riding and cows getting in the way.

Sadly cows don't get hit by vehicles much thanks to their 'holy status'. I don't fully understand this concept. Why would you let something 'holy' wander around in the middle of a dangerous road and eat trash? They still look pretty tasty.

There were also several, very flat, furry brown splats with long furry tails sticking out of them in the middle of the road. Nearby, other monkeys played chicken with the traffic to go and have a nibble. Life appears to be tough for wildlife around here.

I managed to find the 'entrance to the park' as advertised in the Lonely Planet. It was a big iron gate that was locked. Nearby some official looking people sat attentively in the shade. I decided to seek their advice.

I wandered over after dismounting as elegantly as a person with small fat hairy legs can from a rather tall bike. Rather than bother with niceties, such as 'hello', 'how are you' etc. I got straight to the point, since whenever an Indian person speaks to me, they also neglect this timewasting tradition.

'Is the park open?' I asked..... Nothing
'Where is the entrance?' I tried..... Fingers were pointed to the big gate...
'Can you open it?' .... 'No' their leader replied. He muttered something about 14th November and pointed at a sign.

The sign indicated that the park was closed until the 14th November. The animals must be on holiday or something. Who could blame them?

I clambered back on the bike after snapping a picture of a map of the park, which conveniently showed the location of the 'jungle roads' together with the apparent location of several other 'entrances'.

An idea was forming in my head....

How could a park, which was several hundred square kilometres in size, only have a couple of 'entrances'? Surely there must be other ways in?

I zipped down the road and after a couple of minutes spotted a dirt track going off to my left. The track was blockaded by a small log, laid strategically across. I went around it and bounced off into the jungle before anyone saw.

As I got further and further from the main road, I became more and more alert. Deep patches of sand along the route made the going tiring, especially since I was attempting to look in all directions at once in search of the elusive elephants.

Were they being elusive? Or were they stalking me? Preparing for an ambush? Elephants are quite big I recalled from seeing them at Knowsley Safari Park in the UK. I also recalled not seeing any motorbikes at said park. How would an elephant react to a big noisy orange KTM creeping through the jungle? Had Arai conducted any testing on their helmets to guarantee them against elephant (or tiger) attack? How do you survive an elephant attack? Do you play dead or climb a tree?
Was this really such a good idea?

Suddenly... something appeared on the track ahead. I skidded to a halt, my heart in my mouth..... It was a (very) big pile of poo. I considered sticking my finger in it to see how warm it was, that's what a proffessional would do isn't it? They would also be able to see what they had for breakfast. I decided against this idea on the grounds that it might be a trap and proceeded cautiously onwards.

A few hundred metres up the road I spotted something else. This was much bigger than a big pile of poo. And it was moving towards me. It was a herd of cows. I pulled over to let them past and then wondered whether they might decided to stampede. Thankfully, they buggered off into the bushes
.
The track was pretty fun. No other vehicles. Lots of dried up rivers to cross. Every now and again I stopped and turned the engine off to be greeted with silence. Eventually various unseen creatures took the hint and started making generic jungle noises again until I decided to start my engine and head off. I could also see various animal tracks in the sand. I had no idea what they were.

It was now getting close to midday so I decided to head towards the river where the wildlife might be getting a refreshing drink. A track headed along side a small stream which eventually reached a big pile of boulders leading up next to a small man made water course. I walked up and came to the conclusion that I could ride up it easily.

30 minutes later and I had managed to get halfway up, drop the bike, struggle to turn it round and head back the way I came. The bike was more than capable. Sadly the riders short legs weren't.

There were no animals near the river either, so dejected, I decided to set off back to the hotel.

Whilst riding down a small tarmaced road I saw something up ahead. It wasn't poo, or a cow, this was bigger. It was so big it was causing the foliage at the side of the road to move. I slowed and cautiously approached. It was an old lady carrying a pile of branches twice as large as herself on her head.

I couldn't see her face as I rode past, but I was convinced she was laughing at me.

Note to Lonely Planet editors - After thorough investigation, the park has 'poo, cows and old ladies' but is still a charming little place.

Cowboys & Indians

2009-10-31T14:23:00.004Z

After 3 days in Manali we decided that we should probably leave for warmer climes, so we arose early (10am) and went for breakfast. At 12pm we decided it was probably too late to leave and that we should try again tomorrow. We bathed once again in the hot public baths where I caught a cold from a grotty Indian.

The next day we arose early (9am) and went for breakfast. We left at 11am. Our destination was ultimately Rishikesh, but over some roads reccomended by a German on a Bullet Enfield.

2 hours and 80km later, I realised that I had left my wallet containing all my cards back at the hotel. Marc continued onwards to find a hotel whilst I backtracked, nursing a nasty Indian cold.

During my backtrack I was ambushed by a cow who jumped out from behind a parked car whilst I was passing through a small town. I screamed and grabbed the front brake, too much front brake. I fell over. Fortunately I was only travelling at 5 mph. Coincidently, there was also a festival in the town attended by several thousand Indians who happened to be on either side of the road. They all watched whilst I quickly righted my bike, hopped on and buggered off.

I retrieved said wallet and set off back again. At sunset I was back where I originally started. Marc text me the gps coordinates. Only 30km away. Not too far. Marc also text me that the pass I had to traverse was also only 3000km high. 1 hour later and I was only 20km away on what can only be described as a dirt track, going upwards, in the dark, with a runny nose and lots of achy bones. Thankfully there were no other vehicles stupid enough to ride over a mountain that night.

My view as I traversed the mountain.

Upon arriving at the hotel I asked for guy in the restaurant to cook me some sort of curry. He looked at me blankly. 'Omelette?' he said... I agreed, too tired to argue, then went to bed.

The next day we set off over the hills. There were lots of hills. In fact, they were more like mountains. We went up them, over them, round them, under them and eventually arrived at sunset at a town called Rohru, on the banks of a river. Not seeing any hotels and spotting that the river had lots of sandy beaches, we bought supplies and attempted to make our way to a suitable spot. Just as it got dark we negotiated our bikes down a steep path down a cliff face and onto the rocky river shore. That night, we didn't bother with tents and just slept on the sand which interspersed the rocks. I also discovered that the curious Indians appear to be scared by people who speak German... I have a new trick up my sleeve.

Once again, we set off the next day over the hills and again there were lots of them with lots of twisty dirt roads going up, over, round etc. At sunset we had managed to leave the hills behind and make it to the next province and about 70km from our ultimate destination, Rishikesh. We decided to push on. 2 pantwettingly hours later we managed to make it to this touristy place on the side of the Ganges.

Today, after tinkering with the bikes for a bit, we went for a walk. We wandered down to the river and bought a ticket for 10 rupees for the boat to the other side. This was because we couldn't figure out how to get to the bridge 50m away. 10minutes later and 100 people full, the small boat chugged to the other side. Indian families laughed and screamed as they splashed each other with the holy water. I attempted to avoid getting wet, or a disease.

On the other side we found our way to the beachy shore where we were immediately set upon by an old woman selling tubs of flowers. We didn't speak Hindi and she didn't speak English. This didn't stop her managing to sell us two tubs which we were prompted to set on fire and push out into the current as some sort of good luck ritual. We were the only ones. Mine drifted downstream for 10 metres, hit some rocks and sank.

As we were proudly watching our offering to the gods we were slowly set upon by several other old ladies and small children. Not happy that we had begrudgingly bought some boatythings already and contrubuted to water pollution (funny how littering is enforcable by a 500rupee fine but anything holy is exempt) they attempted to sell us more and followed us up the beach. Eventually after 100m they had given up save for an extremely persistent small boy who's only words of English were, 'one hundred rupees please I go'. Marc and I made the best of an annoying situation by passing him from one to the other for 500m until I won the game by shouting 'is that 100 rupees in your hand Marc?' and running out of sight over some rocks.

We relaxed for an hour or so on a beach whilst I attemped to do handstands and build a castle.. The Indians watched me suspiciously for this whislt they splashed themselves with holy water. I watched them as I attempted to not get wet, or a disease

We set off back across the newly discovered bridge where once again I managed to collect a small child who wanted 100 rupees for some small round diseased looking things that they kept trying to put into my hand. After 5 minutes of random conversation about monkeys and the weather I pointed at a tourist couple passing the other way and announced loudly 'they want some!' I won that game too. The couple weren't very happy on their evening stroll.

Indian people are slowly making me very angry when I'm on the bike. Everytime I stop the first question is usually a polite conversation opener, such as 'how much.' At first I said 'one million rupees' until Marc pointed out that this is $22,000US. I've now decided to start saying 'guess' to all questions. I'm looking forwards to the 'guess' game.

They also have problems avoiding touching things. If I ask for directions, they will come and lean on the bike whilst they talk to you. They look surprised when I physically lift them off. Earlier tonight I was sat next to the bike when a guy came over and asked if it was mine. I said 'no' in order to avoid the inevitable conversation and he promtly went and grabbed the handlebars and shook the bike. I shouted and asked if he had a wife. He looked confused. 'Can I touch her?' I asked. He looked shocked and ran off. I don't know how much of India I will be able to tolerate.