A Day in the Life of a Cycle Tourist in India

[journal entry 05/02/2012]

Got up, got out of my sleeping bag.

Breakfast: coffee, porridge, a granola bar. I slept well and it was 9:30 by the time I'd struck camp and got on the road. That was some of the gnarliest undergrowth I've ever camped in - I had burrs and scratches all over me and my clothes. There were some big loud birds making a racket in the trees above me, about the size of crows but grey and with heads shaped like jays. I might look for a Guide to Indian Birds in Jaipur. It would be nice to know.

I overtook a few camels which were pulling carts along National Highway 8. A day or two ago that was still an unusual sight but now it's commonplace and out here they seem to be the commonest beasts of burden. Rajasthan is a desert state, I suppose.

I did enter Rajasthan this morning, and ran the gauntlet of traffic to get a photo of the sign, which was in the central reservation. I haven't taken many photos these last couple of days so I was pleased to get that one.

It was still flat as anything and I was merrily rolling along. I'm the focus of all eyes out here, and sometimes the approach of the locals is a bit weird. Alright, it's always weird. When I was sat scoffing my dinner a guy on his bike stopped, staring at me, then walked to within fifty yards and pretended to look out at the fields, but he kept looking askance at me. A guy in a car pulled up next to me, blared his horn in my lughole, then turned in front of me and stopped. He looked surprised when I rode on. Another guy on a bike overtook me v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y but still couldn't maintain the pace, so I went past him again, smiling and saying "namaste" as I did. He stared straight ahead. I shrugged. A few seconds later he came past again, still staring ahead, but this time he growled just like Lee Perry does at the start of Jungle Lion. He cut across me and towards a roadside restaurant, gesturing at me to join him. I had to laugh.

India is full of incidents like this. A day here is worth a week anywhere else.

I tried to buy some butter to put in my cheese sarnies. Yeah, I'm getting right into the cuisine. I asked at a roadside stall/restaurant which looked likely. I got some Pepsi and pineapple juice and asked if he did butter. He didn't understand. I repeated it, rolling the "r", but still no recognition. I tried more of an RP accent, in case he was confused by my flat vowels, I did it with and without the glottal stop. Eventually I threw my hands up in disgust and left, but I remembered that I had the butter packaging in my bag of rubbish, so I gestured him over and showed him the packaging. "Ah, butter!" says he, and rattles off a load of Hindi to the guy in the kitchen, in which the word "butter" is clearly distinguishable. Crazy country. It turned out to be margarine, too. I had the same issue later when I asked for some water, the guy shook his head and said "Mountain Dew?" but I repeated myself and he nodded. "Water, yes." I don't know what's happening any more. I'm not sure I dare trying to learn Hindi as that would give us an extra language in which to misunderstand one another.

I can't help liking the people, though. After my dinner I took a speed bump a bit too fast and came off with a rear wheel puncture. There didn't seem to be anyone around - I thought I might get away without the usual audience. No such luck. I don't know where they came from but there were soon half a dozen people around me. I felt the need to be a little bad-tempered as the last thing I wanted was an audience. Someone asked me a question and I replied "piss off." As he repeated it, "Piss-off-a," I guess they'd asked where I was from. I gestured and waved and told them to go and fix the road but they weren't going anywhere. Becoming more amused than exasperated, I asked about chai and one of them pointed to the tea stand over the road. I waved that one of them should go and get me a cup but I wasn't sure I'd been understood, or that they'd bother. Turns out, the subsequent babbled argument was about who had to go and get the tea - the youngest went and got me a cup of sweet milky cha which he handed to me just as I was fitting a spare innertube, and refused payment. I took a couple of photos of the gang and relaxed into the moment.

It was lucky they were there, really, as one of them pointed out the huge tear in the tyre sidewall. I deftly took it off and fitted my spare tyre. I think I'll have to get my sister to bring some new tyres when she comes to visit in March - those Marathon XR tyres have been rubbish. In the bin with it.

When I'd pumped the tyre back up and re-fitted the wheel, the lads were all admiring the bike and the pump and my Dennis the Menace doll. I gestured that the main guy should have a go on my bike, and as he was a bit stand-offish, one of his mates elbowed him out of the way to dive on and go wobbling up the road. He went so far that I half-thought he wasn't coming back. I think he was just having trouble making it turn. A couple of them rode it up and down the service road: grins all around. It was another weird encounter, not least the fact that I'd got my point across far more easily to people who spoke not a word of English.

I did manage to get milk. No beer though. Yesterday the road was lined with English Wine and Beer shops, but today none except one with its shutters up. Maybe it's a dry day in Rajasthan? Mind you, I prefer having no beer to having no milk: finding milk was hard. A random shop on a row of identical shops happened to have a few packets of milk in the fridge (packets of milk take me right back to being a kid). I still haven't picked up the cues when it comes to shops. Maybe there are none.

I started to look for somewhere to camp at about 4.30 - I didn't want to get too close to Jaipur. I could have made it there tonight, but I'd rather have a night in a tent followed by an afternoon and a morning in Jaipur than have a full day and have to stump up for an extra night in a hotel.

Rajasthan is much less populous than Utter Pradesh and the area around Delhi, but it was still a pain trying to find somewhere quiet to camp. I thought I'd found a decent spot behind a hill but one of the locals thought I was lost and tried to guide me out. I shook him off, then another local took a quarter-mile detour to stand next to me and stare, saying not a word. Maybe he was just engaging in that famous Indian pastime of staring at stuff, or maybe he was hinting that I should scarper. Either way, I wasn't lingering.

I rolled up the road a little ways and found a gap in a wall, so I'm camping within thirty yards of the road. It's quieter here within the Jaipur Ring Road (which may also explain the difficulty with finding a campsite), even with the buzzing of the power lines above me. I didn't set fire to myself when I made my tea tonight, which was pasta and cheese sauce again. I've come up with a very simple plan of where to go after Jaipur - I'll tour the J-towns of Rajasthan, so I'll go across the desert to Jaisalmer, which sounds beautiful and which fits in with my plan of getting into the desert, back to Jodhpur (I like the name) then I'll follow the line of hills down towards Gujarat. I'd like to get down to the Indian Ocean but not if it takes too long.

So: from near Bawal, NH8, Kotputli, here - 78.98 miles/ 392:41/ 12.07 mph average/ 23.5 mph max/ 5714 miles total

Too Much Monkey Business: Around Rishikesh

Rishikesh isn't quite the sleepy village by the river I'd been led to expect. It's a decent-sized city, and as Goths go to Bradford or Leeds, so do New Age travellers come to Rishikesh. It's like Glastonbury, but with monkeys. I was reminded of the old saying about districts of Newcastle - Scotswood has a pub on every corner, and Heaton has a church. Well, Rishikesh has a Yoga Education Centre on every corner.

I suppose I'm still trying to come to terms with the place, and grasping at analogies to make it familiar. Also, people keep asking each other why we're here, and for once the answer isn't obvious. I'm not passing through Rishikesh on the way to somewhere else; Rishikesh was our destination. And I'm not an enlightenment-seeker and I haven't come to go white water rafting or to do a bungee jump. I just came cos I heard it was a beautiful place. Wandering around the town, amongst all the noise and adverts and bustle, this wasn't the most obvious aspect of the place.

We took our bikes out of town and into the Shivalik Mountains, and I realised that Rishikesh is more like Fort William or Inverness than anything else. You come here as a base to explore the area, as the hills around it are beautiful but the place itself is a bit of a shit tip. Come to Rishikesh, then leave straightaway to escape the hordes of monkeys, angry monks and persistent map sellers.



The roads outside town are fabulous and quiet, at least by comparison. We followed a road which curved around the Ganges gorge, then zig-zagged away up a side valley and into the mountains. We did have to brave Monkey Corner where a guy was feeding the monkeys out of his car window - it's alright for him, he could just roll his window up. I thought we might have to fight off hungry road monkeys. Jonathan made a passing comment that the monkeys resembled the creature which gives everyone ebola in the movie Outbreak, which didn't reassure me.



I don't think we made it to the village Kandi which was marked on my map, but we had a day in the mountains, in a landscape different from anything I've seen before. Huge green hills and overhanging trees. The milky waters of the Ganges. Come to Rishikesh, but don't go to Rishikesh.

...

Anyway, I need to go. One of the monkeys has ran off with my bag of rubbish in its teeth.



Rishikesh photos on Flickr

Delhi

Day three in India. Or four, possibly - I'll have to check.



Delhi is a great city. I feel a bit guilty about enjoying a place which has such poverty and squalor (especially coming straight from Dubai) and when Jonathan seems to hate it so much, but I still love it. Every day, every hour, is crammed with minutes and seconds and incidents.

I feel as though I'm still catching up on sleep after the flight, where I got none and had to build my bike outside the terminal at Indira Gandhi International before riding into the city. I had been warned about the amount of hassle and touts and scamsters and pushy taxi drivers at the airport, but they must have taken one look at the enormous, misshapen box I had my bike in, and gone "sod that". The inevitable crowd gathered but it wasn't at all intrusive - they were quiet, attentive and asked a few polite questions while I chased nuts and washers across the marble floor. More like a polite audience at a lecture than a street crowd.

And that's what's pleased me so far about India, at least about the bits of Delhi I've seen so far; I worried that I'd find the predicted levels of hassle and intrusiveness overwhelming, but it's been manageable at worst and hilarious at best. Lots of people smiled and waved at me when I was riding, and it's hard to be bad-tempered when that happens. Once I reached Paharganj, the area around New Delhi Railway Station, any time I stopped to check my notes or guidebook or simply gather my thoughts, someone would immediately approach me to offer a cheap room rate. I quickly realised that I couldn't remember the name of the hotel where Elsa was staying, and I was unlikely to spot it as I wandered, and I decided to follow a gentle old chap whose approach I found much more charming than most, and he has led me to a decent, cheap hotel. I'd already toured the area a bit, so I didn't worry about where he was going.



In that brief wander, I saw so much of what I'd expected and hoped for - cows and dogs and goats in the street, street food everywhere, beggars and touts and market stalls selling tat or valuable statues or cheap knock- offs. Later that day, walking around with Elsa, there were street monkeys and a Sikh temple and gardens and parrots and kites, kites everywhere. The feathered black kind, that is, though there were a few string kites as well.



Seeing the city with others was great as well - Elsa clearly loves the place, and as we were sitting on the balcony above the city watching the sunset way above the hurly-burly of the streets below (I've been using the phrase "hurly-burly" quite a lot) I said that I was looking forward to Jonathan's reaction, as it would tell me whether I'd simply become inured to the amount of attention while out on my bike, where I am the centre of attention in every town, city and village, or whether it's not actually as bad as the guide books make out. Here in Delhi, in Paharganj which is backpacker central, I feel quite anonymous.

I'm masochistically pleased to report that Jonathan does seem overwhelmed. I was surprised and pleased that he accepted my offer to meet me here - since his job had finished after New Year I knew he had the time, but I didn't know whether he had the money or the inclination. He'd had even less sleep than me on the flight from the UK but at least he had a proper hotel to stay at - the same as Elsa, so we met there and went out for drinks. Connaught Place is central and has a fair selection of eateries so we went out for Elsa's last night and Jonathan spent the whole night re-telling the story of his walk around the block when an auto rickshaw driver kept warning him that the place was too dangerous to walk around. In retaliation Elsa and I ordered a load of cocktails, but Jonathan doesn't drink that much so he was jetlagged, stressed and sober in-between two progressively more drunken people.

The next day I thought he'd benefit from seeing Raj Ghat, the memorial to Gandhi set in beautiful parklands and which I'd found to be an oasis of calm in the hurly-burly of Delhi, an escape from the madness of the rest of the city, where even the Indians took a rest, as no one tried to sell me anything while I was there.



Sadly, it was closed for the Republic Day celebrations. Still, Jonathan enjoyed the auto rickshaw ride through the traffic. We did visit the National Gandhi Museum (which is different from the Gandhi Museum and the Gandhi Memorial), but Jonathan didn't get the moment of serenity I'd planned as preparation for the next bit on the itinerary (I might not have mentioned there was an itinerary), the streets and alleys of Old Delhi. We went via Jama Masjid, where I refused to pay the 200 rupees to get in as it's supposed to be free and it's only a tax for taking your camera, which I wasn't going to use as I'd been there yesterday. They chucked us out. This probably did little for Jonathan's serenity.

Back around the corner, I suggested we try one of the other entrances to the mosque, but he didn't seem that bothered about going in any more, especially after seeing and refusing to use the toilets. I'll admit, kneeling to take a piss is new to me.

Maybe it was a bit much. We tried and failed to shake off this cycle rickshaw rider, who followed us around the corner outside the Bearing District just as I was trying to walk Jonathan to the Firework District to see the huge Catherine Wheels. There's a district for everything.

Jonathan seemed keen on having a look around the old streets, and I thought he might enjoy seeing it from the relatively spacious seat, rather than having to dash through the warren like a rat in a maze. I normally hate using animal terms to refer to humans, but no word seems more appropriate than "Warren" for the crush of people and narrow alleys and shops that form Old Delhi. Even though I have a good sense of direction and I kept an eye on the map and I'd been around there yesterday, I felt a bit claustrophobic, and the day was drawing on. I could have done with more cues from Jonathan, but I was really enjoying the ride - the driver put on a bit of a show and gave us loads of information about things we were passing and pointed out things to photograph, and there were nearly fisticuffs in the street along Chandno Chowk. However, Jonathan was not enjoying himself, so we asked the driver to drop us back at the hotel. Since we hadn't agreed a price, the end result was dissatisfaction all around, as Jonathan and I were trying to pay the price for a taxi ride and he was asking the price for a guided tour. He wasn't as knackered as he made out, either, and I'm not sure he really did have a family to support...

So that was the end of that night: when I walked back from Jonathan's hotel to mine I passed a huge wedding party being held in a massive marquee and I nearly went back for him but I couldn't be bothered and I didn't think he'd want to anyway. I wandered back to my hotel, past the Wine and Beer shop where they hand the cheap whisky out of a hole in the wall, and the workshops of handcrafted Hindu idols, and the railway bridge where the homeless people and dogs sleep. A guy appeared, furtively, out of the shadows and said "hey my friend, you buy this?" and waved a 16Gb memory stick at me. I was quite disappointed.

Today, I have finally sorted out an Indian SIM and internet access for my phone, though I hadn't realised (cos the phone shop didn't tell me, though the guy at the Idea shop explained it wonderfully) that my Sim only really works in Delhi.

Yet another weird conincidence in a trip that has been hallmarked by weird coincidences: I had got sick of waiting for Jonathan and wandered down to Connaught Place to organise my phone, and he had texted me when I was there to say that he'd just woken up. I replied and explained that I was at the mobile phone shop which I had taken him to yesterday and that he should meet me at the same coffee shop we'd visited yesterday.

Turns out, he didn't receive that text, but he still decided to brave the Delhi madness and head to the same cafe, which is where he was when I called him. He said later, he was surprised at my reaction as I seemed very matter-of-fact but that was because he was simply where I expected him to be...

So today started late and felt very relaxed.

To me.

Tomorrow, Jonathan and I are cycling to Rishikesh in the Himalayan foothills. That is, assuming he agrees to cycling out of the city.

Link to Delhi photos on Flickr

Where I Am and Where I'm Going 20/01/2011

5200 miles ridden so far.

The route: Darlo-Northallerton-York-Beverley-Hull-ferry-Zeebrugge-Brugges-Antwerp-Maastricht-Verviers-Stadtkyll-Cochem-Rheintal-Bingen-Mainz-Frankfurt-Mains-Tauber-Rothenburg-Altmuhl-Eichstatt-Landshut-Vilshofen-Donau-Passau-Linz-Krems-Vienna-Bratislava-Mosonmagyorovar-Gyor-Komorom-Tatabanya-Budapest-Dunaujvaros-Baja-Backi Breg-Sombor-Novi Sad-Strazilova-Belgrade-Pancevo-Smederovo-Pozerevac-Petrovac-Bor-Pirot-Dimitrovgrad-Sofia-Plovdiv-Edirne-Istanbul-Beykoz-Kayagze-Sile-Karacaköy-Kaynarca-Adapazari-Bolu-Ankara-Cappadocia-Kayseri-Sivas-Zara-Erzincan-Erzurum-Horason-Agri-Dogubayezit-Çaldiran-Van-Ozalp-Khom-Tabriz-Bostan-Abad-Zanjan-Esfehan-Yazd-Shiraz-Firuz Abad-Bandar Abbas-Sharjah-Dubai

This is my last day in Dubai - it's been an enjoyable couple of weeks and Les and family have been wonderful, But, I'm ready to move on, and since there is no feasible alternative, tomrorrow I'm on a flight to India, Delhi in fact.

Sadly, the dhow boats were unwilling to take me to India - I expect you have to be both determined and lucky to get a passage to India on one of those things. I soon got the message that they weren't interested in taking passengers - I'd ask their destination, and when they said "India" and I expressed an interest in taking ship with them, they'd change their minds and say they were going to Somalia instead. I would probably have preferred a straightforward "Piss off", but I got the message,

This will break my longstanding record of not flying anywhere, and I must admit to being disappointed at that, and at having such a chunk of terrain over which I haven't cycled.

However. I have a plan to circumvent that. First, though, it's India, and my mate Jonathan is flying out to ride with me a bit, and my sister Anita will meet me in Delhi in March. I wont be rushing through India.

Kitlist (or, What Is All That Shit You're Carrying?)

A few people have asked me about my kit and how I organise it. Since I wanted to take an inventory here in Dubai and see if there was any weight I could do without, I took the opportunity to write this list. Only read on if you're that bored. Rather than try to categorise anything, I've just listed where on the bike it goes.

The reason for the organisation is to have my most valuable/nickable items in the front two panniers where I can lift them off quickly, with the front right pannier being the things I tend to use most often. Getting the weight distribution just so is another factor, too. And of course, after four months this is where I'm used to things being.

I've also written a 5,000-mile review of my kit, which goes into more depth about the equipment, and you can see this here.

This is everything I have with me in Dubai. I'll be adding a mozzie net for India.

FRONT RACK

Sleeping bag
Silk sleeping bag liner
Bivvy bag
Sleeping mat
Tent (without poles)

FRONT RIGHT PANNIER

Patches
Chain lubricant
Electrical tape
Brake cable x 1
Pedal bearings
Spokey
4 mm Allen key
5 mm Allen key
Matches
Toe strap
Chain splitter
Plastic bag
Elastic band
Cable ties x lots
Innertubes x 2
Leatherman Skeletool (knife, pliers, wire cutters and screwdriver plus various torx and Allen key fittings)
Cone spanner
Gaffer tape around spanner
Next Best Thing 2 (lightweight tool for removing cassette)
Gear cable x 1
Security key for hub skewers
6 mm Allen key
Pump adaptor for using presta valves with a schrader pump
Cable ties
Velcro strap
Nuts and bolts
Dog Dazer
iPod
Camera
Sketch pad and pencil
Spare pencil
Compass
Wallet containing cash, second Credit card and second bank card, copy of passport, plus contact lens and spectacle prescriptions
Glasses case
Sunglasses
Hip flask
Pritt stick
Pens
Marker pen
Journal and notes
Current map (which is usually on top of the luggage on the front rack so I can see it when I'm riding)
Current phrasebook
Head torch

FRONT LEFT PANNIER

Sony ebook
Spare cash and travellers' cheques
Insurance documents
Spare passport photos
Spare batteries (AA x 4 and AAA x 4)
Dynohub charger and leads
Portapow USB battery
USB cable
USB battery charger
iPod/iphone cable
Spare SD cards
MP3 player which takes a AAA battery
Spare earphones
Various charging bits
Freeloader solar charger
Wind up radio
Collins Guide to the Night Sky
Pen
White gold
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

REAR LEFT PANNIER

Trangia
Optimus stove plus spares
Matches
Zippo
GI tin opener x 2
Sandwich bags
Tinfoil
Bowl
Cups x 2
Clips and stuff for sealing food
Food (varies, but always enough porridge and pasta/noodles for one day and usually more)

REAR RIGHT PANNIER

water filter (Katadyn Pocket) and puritabs
Baby wipes
Soap
Shower gel
Comb
Deodorant
Razor
Nail clippers
Lip balm
Contact lens case x 2
Spare lenses
Lens solution
Eye drops
Savlon
Antiseptic wipes
Immodium
Anti histamines
Plasters
Pro plus
Ibuprofen
Paracetamol
Earplugs
Multivitamins
Suncream
Dry wash
Rain jacket
Heavy duty rubble bag
Spare bottle
Tyvex sheet for use as groundsheet
Maps for future destinations
Phrasebooks for future destinations
Fifteen litre water carrier
Tubes x 3
Space blanket
Gear cable
Brake cable
Kevlar spoke
Cable ties x lots
Waterproof matches
Repair kit for sleeping mat
Heavy duty cable ties x 2
Lotsa patches and glue
Length of rope
Spare clip for panniers
Nuts and bolts
Spare brake pads x 3
Shimano synonym connector
Tiny backpack
Bandages
Plasters
Antihistamines
Pro plus
Ibuprofen
Paracetamol
Immodium
Needle and thread
Tape
Antiseptic wipes
Soluble aspirin
Doxycycline (for malaria) - 6 month supply...
Kryptonite mini D lock and cable
Lightweight combination lock

REAR RACK

tent poles
Travel towel
Cycling top x 2
Merino t shirt x 2
Lusso cycling shorts
Aldi socks x 2
Woolly socks
Buff
Merino buff
Altura night vision gloves
Spesh BG Gel mitts
Camo arm warmers
Fleece
Rapha soft shell jacket
Craghopper trousers
Leg warmers
Cap
Boxer shorts
overshoes
Jingas (lightweight shoes for off the bike)
[that's all my clothes apart from my shoes - feel free to assume I'm wearing some of them at any given time! Anything not in use goes into a stuffsack]

ON THE BIKE FRAME

Spare spokes x 20 (ten of both lengths: the rear drive side spokes are the same length as the front spokes)
Spare tyre (Panaracer Pasela 1.5")
Topeak Road Morph pump
Cannondale mini pump
Optimus fuel
Trangia fuel

ON MY PERSON

Passport
Cash
Wallet
Credit Card
Bank card
Phone

I do occasionally move things about so that's not set in stone. The rear right pannier is the hardest to organise as it's stuff I use fairly frequently, and inevitably the thing I want at any given moment ends up at the bottom.

By the way, I didn't throw anything away - it's all stuff that I need. Although I am fitting the spare chain and cassette. Or at least the spare chain.

Dubai (5000 mile) Equipment Review

Bike Stuff

My approach has been to choose and fit parts for reliability and simplicity, cheapness, and hopefully universality, so I can get replacements easily when things do go wrong. As nothing has failed dramatically [I]yet[/I], I can't say how realistic the last element is, but hopefully that will help to explain the decisions I made when buying and fitting the equipment.

Tyres: Schwalbe Marathon XR 1.6". I fitted these in Istanbul to replace a pair of Schwalbe Marathon 1.75" tyres. I had no problems with those but they were a bit worn.

I don't especially like these tyres: they do give a bit of extra grip over the vanilla marathons, but they feel sluggish and I've had a few punctures since Istanbul. The roads haven't been that bad - they just seem to be susceptible to damage and penetration by glass, thorns, bits of wire and other miscellaneous bits I've pulled out of the casing. Finally, they are a pig to fit; they don't sit correctly on the rims, so the ride usually feels a bit up-and-down where the tyre stands proud of the rim. Still, they were on offer so I got them cheap and I'm going to persist with them.


Wheels - front is a 32-hole Shimano DH-3N71 which I built into a Mavic rim and have used for commuting and touring for two and a half years. The bearings sound dreadful and there is a distinct amount of play in the hub (which the guy in the Tabriz bike shop didn't notice, which rather sucked away my faith in his skills). Now serviced by the lovely folks at the Cannondale bike shop here in Dubai.

The rear is an XT Parallax 36-hole hub (second hand when I bought it and I rode about 5000 miles on it before this trip, and I serviced it before I left the UK) built into a Rigida Sputnik rim by the LBS and which I rode for about 600 miles before the trip. No problems. Double butted spokes all around, DT or Sapim, I think.

26" (559) wheels are as close to a worldwide standard as you get, so in the event of catastrophe I could hopefully get replacements wherever I am.

Frame is a 531 Peugeot Dakar from about 1984. I had it resprayed and v-brake bosses added and crappy u-brake bosses taken off. Then, when a crack developed around the seat clamp, I had the seat tube replaced (a 75-something tube, I think it was: Kevin Winter, a local framebuilder, did the repair, and I'm responsible for the paint job) and downtube lever bosses added. All a bit much for a factory Peugeot, but it fits and has performed admirably and I love it. I've treated it with Framesaver.

Forks: steel Kona P2 with a 1" steerer. I was also incredibly lucky that they came with bosses for low-riders. The one minor issue I had was that they came with really inconvenient lawyer lips which made removing the front wheel an utter pain until I got around to filing them down. They make for a good ride and seem utterly reliable.

Saddle: Brooks B17 special. Say no more.

Seatpost: I only mention this cos my mate Kat gave it to me before I left, as the one I had kept slipping. It's from Bontrager, and it's been fine since I fitted it on a rainy morning in Beverley, ninety miles into this journey.

Bars: Salsa Bell Lap 46". I really like these bars, I have the same on my other bike. The width suits me, and I love the shape of the curve.

Brake levers: Tektro v-brake levers. Brake OK and are OK comfort- wise. They are the best solution I've found to the issue of using v-brakes with drop bars. The hoods have started to disintegrate in the rain (this pre-dates the trip, and in fact little on the bike was new) and with wear, but electrical tape is a good enough bodge.

Shifters: Shimano Ultegra 9-speed downtube jobbies. I have them set to friction as I'm using a 7-speed cassette. I've tried to pick my parts to be simple and reliable, and these epitomise that approach: they just work.

Brakes: Shimano XT on the rear and LX on the front. They've been fine. I'm using Koolstop brake pads front and rear, which are simply excellent. I replaced the front pads in Istanbul, after many many miles of use. The only problem I've had is that I lost the pin on one of the rear pads, so it fell out if I braked when holding the bike on a hill. I became quite adept at slotting it back into place, though, and I can't really blame Mr Koolstop for this. I put a new one in when I was in Istanbul.

Chainset: Truvativ something-or-other which I found at Darlo tip. I have replaced the chainrings since then, though. The middle ring, which I use the most, is a Middleburn ring and one of the few things I bought new before this trip. The outer ring is TA and the inner is Shimano. The spread is 26-36-46, and I spend most of the time in the middle. The cassette is just a Shimano HG 7-speed jobbie which I've had a while, combined with a Sachs 8-speed chain. I think the largest sprocket is 30-tooth, and I haven't had to walk anything yet, apart from where the grip has failed on mud or sand.

Mechs: the rear is a Shimano LX 9-speed. I've been using it for some while now, so it must be approaching 15,000 miles. It has worked uncomplainingly so far. Front mech is a Shimano something-or-other which I bought for a quid from Chain Reaction before I left, and shimmed out with cans of Stella I blagged from my neighbour. I don't really drink lager, except where there's no alternative, and I felt slightly guilty for enabling his alcoholism. It shifts fine.

Rear rack: Tubus Cargo. Sturdy and solid and trustworthy.

Front racks: Nitto thingummy which attaches at the brake bosses and the fork crown. The fork crown snapped when I was descending the rough track on Sleightholme Moor (before it was resurfaced), and though I contacted the shop where I bought them, I didn't get a reply so I bodged a repair with heavy duty cable ties and decided to use it anyway. All proper cycle tourists' bikes have some sort of repair with a cable tie or toestrap, otherwise it marks it as the steed of a dilettante.

Also, Tubus low-riders which have been fine.

Rear panniers: good ole Carradice Super Cs. A classic. I had the seams replaced before I left, and though they're not entirely waterproof, they're big and rugged and lovable.

Front panniers: Ortlieb. Awkward to fit and they have a tendency to sway about, making the steering juddery. The hook adjusters on the left have gone west somewhere, so I've padded the low-riders out with electrical tape and clamped them down with more cable ties to stop them rattling. But they're waterproof, and quite easy to get on and off. At least, when they're not cable tied down. The shoulder straps are handy and I like the inner pockets.

Excepting the front hub, I've had very few mechanical issues: there was an annoying knocking sound which developed in Austria. I thought it might have been the cassette, so I tightened that, but it persisted through Hungary, to the point where the French couple I was riding with commented on it. But it went away by Serbia, so I'm not worrying about it, despite its occasional reappearance. I've had to re-wrap the bar tape and bodge the brake lever hoods with electrical tape. I've had to tighten the bolts on the low-riders. The usual punctures. I adjusted the headset in eastern Turkey when I noticed a bit of play in it (actually, I first noticed this in Serbia but it took me a while to bother fixing it). The pop rivets on the front mudguard popped out off when I was dragging my bike through the bush to a campsite, and I fixed this with a cable tie. I can't think of anything else - it's all been very minor stuff.

I am carrying plenty of spares - a spare rear mech is probably an extravagance, but I already had it, so I'd rather carry it than have to buy another XT mech on the road. I'm also carrying a spare headset, which is ridiculous, but since 1" threadless headsets are bastard rare, and I had to buy the whole headset to get spare bearings, I thought I may as well carry the whole thing. Other than that, I have a spare tyre, tubes, inner cables, spokes, brake pads, patches. Nothing extraordinary.

I'll be replacing the chain in a couple of days, and I may replace the jockey wheels in the rear mech. That's it.

Camping Stuff

Tent: Hilleberg Akto. Very good indeed - light, easy to pitch or strike camp quickly, pretty roomy inside (though I do occasionally yearn for more headroom) and very sturdy. also a subtle shade of green which is useful when camping stealthily. It's not freestanding, but you can use rocks and bungees to peg it out, in a pinch.

Mat: Exped Downmat Pump. Heavy at a kilo and pumping it up is healthy exercise, but the comfort factor outweighs everything else. It is probably more comfortable than most beds I've slept in. One of the seals can make a weird farting noise at times.

It did start spitting feathers at me in Turkey, but it has lasted through Iran despite this, and the very lovely people at Lyon (the UK distributors) have arranged a warranty replacement for me.

Sleeping bag: Snugpak Softie Kilo. Officially a three season mat, though I've had no problems down to -20 (on a different trip) with the addition of a silk liner, a bivvy bag and most of my clothes. No comments, as no problems. It packs away nicely and doesn't yet stink.

Bivvy bag: Alpkit Hunka. It's been great on the three nights I've used it when I didn't want to pitch my tent, such as sleeping rough in Wiener Prater. No problems with condensation despite the damp, and it was warm and roomy. It's not so heavy that I've resented carrying it, either. It has also served a secondary purpose as a sleeping bag outer when the nights got cold across eastern Turkey and northern Iran.

Stoves (yes, plural): firstly, an Optimus Nova Plus which I bought to be the solution to travelling in remote areas. Sadly, it refused to get any hotter than a Dutch Oven for most of the way through Europe. I like things which just work, which is one reason I brought the Trangia, and I am very glad I did, as I found myself relying on it. I did fix the Optimus stove in Istanbul and it worked OK after that (it's quicker than the Trangia, and you can fry chips on it), but it's temperamental. The Trangia is a classic but it can be difficult to get fuel for it. I only saw fuel once in far eastern Turkey so I'd have been stuck without the multifuel stove (and the intervention of the meths fairy). It packs away nicely, is very sturdy and I'm happy to use it just outside the porch of my tent, which is not true of the Optimus. I think they complement one another well so I'll continue to carry both.

Sporks (for what would a camping trip be without sporks?): I was actually carrying two titanium sporks, one attached to the Carradice with a cheap carabiner for easy access when eating yoghurts and emergency coffee, but the carabiner broke and deposited the spork somewhere in Bulgaria, so I am now down to one spork. I am (semi) bereft. Both sporks are things of beauty and a delight to use.

Miscellaneous

I also carry an iPod and a Sony e-reader, for entertainment and to ward off madness. I also have an iPhone which I bought second-hand in Istanbul - charging these devices was always going to be the issue. Now read on...

Charging devices: Portapow USB battery, which I charge from the mains whenever possible. Works well.

Secondly, a Freeloader which I used to charge my phone or iPod or ereader when the sun was hot. Not powerful enough on its own for everything I have, but useful.

And the Dahon Biologic Reecharge, which I only got cos it would directly charge my iPhone (lost in France after PBP, so even more of a waste of time). It did work, but it came with a serious flaw, compounded by a couple of secondary flaws.

Firstly, the battery had to be set to take a charge, meaning it had to be on when it was connected to the hub dynamo, or there was a chance of frying the innards at high speeds.

(the use of the past tense here should be giving you an idea of what's coming)

Fair enough. Unfortunately, the only way to tell that it was on and charging was to lift the front wheel and spin it, and look for the green light to come on. The designers had clearly never tried to use this in a bicycle touring situation, as the on-off button has no clear difference between on and off, and the green LED is only marginally brighter than the green plastic covering. Imagine trying to check this: lift the heavy front end of the bike with one hand, spin the wheel with the other, check that the green light is coming on, but the daylight's too bright so you can't tell and drop the wheel.

It was only a matter of time: I set off without checking one morning, it was wet and miserable and I was convinced I had left it on the night before. I stopped at the bottom of a huge, fast, wet descent to check, and there was no response. Bastard. As I said, I like things that work without too much intervention, and such a huge flaw as that makes the Reecharge utterly inappropriate for touring. I did dry it out, hoping that it might have been the wet which it disliked, but no. It's dead, and I suspect the innards are fried.

I sent a sharp e-mail to Mr Dahon along those lines, and though they didn't comment on my feedback, they have agreed to send me a replacement thingy which was waiting for me in Dubai.

But in general there have been relatively few problems. With an iPhone I have a greater power demand, but I have kept everything charged so far with occasional access to mains electricity.

Anything I haven't mentioned has probably just worked without me thinking about it. For maps, I had the Michelin road map of western Europe to start, which I thoroughly disliked, though I managed. I didn't find the distinction between a-roads and m-ways especially clear, so I had a hell of a time avoiding prohibited roads, and the level of detail was disappointing. I bought maps of Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria en route. Freytag and Berndt was the mapmaker and they were PDG. The scale was 1:400,000 and I found that OK for everything except dirt roads in Serbia where the tracks I was using probably wouldn't appear on the local version of OS Explorer, and in cities, where much more detail was useful. But all the roads I would use were on those maps. The Marco Polo map of Turkey was excellent - I especially liked having spot height at the top of the passes (although not every pass was marked, which caught me out a couple of times) and I miss this on the Gizi map of Iran, which is otherwise fine.

Feel free to ask about anything else, or for more details. There isn't a great deal I'd change, except to have a more reliable multifuel stove and power supply, and different tyres, and possibly different front panniers.

Where I Am and Where I'm Going

5200 miles ridden so far.

The route: Darlo-Northallerton-York-Beverley-Hull-ferry-Zeebrugge-Brugges-Antwerp-Maastricht-Verviers-Stadtkyll-Cochem-Rheintal-Bingen-Mainz-Frankfurt-Mains-Tauber-Rothenburg-Altmuhl-Eichstatt-Landshut-Vilshofen-Donau-Passau-Linz-Krems-Vienna-Bratislava-Mosonmagyorovar-Gyor-Komorom-Tatabanya-Budapest-Dunaujvaros-Baja-Backi Breg-Sombor-Novi Sad-Strazilova-Belgrade-Pancevo-Smederovo-Pozerevac-Petrovac-Bor-Pirot-Dimitrovgrad-Sofia-Plovdiv-Edirne-Istanbul-Beykoz-Kayagze-Sile-Karacaköy-Kaynarca-Adapazari-Bolu-Ankara-Cappadocia-Kayseri-Sivas-Zara-Erzincan-Erzurum-Horason-Agri-Dogubayezit-Çaldiran-Van-Ozalp-Khom-Tabriz-Bostan-Abad-Zanjan-Esfehan-Yazd-Shiraz-Firuz Abad-Bandar Abbas-Sharjah-Dubai

So here I am in Dubai, just about getting over the shock of the transformation from Iran to Dubai. I'm not very hung over - I took it easy on the drinkahol, as I felt pissed halfway down the first pint. I'm staying with a friend of my dad's in Dubai and luxury.

I still plan to get to India somehow, and the choices are to take a flight (which I'd rather not do), or talk my way onto one of the dhow boats which brave the seas to India. This is also slightly complicated by my friend Jonathan possibly coming to meet me in Delhi - if he is, I'll probably just get a flight. Although I could ship to Mumbai and get on a train to Delhi.

Anyway, for the moment I'm enjoying the chance to relax, and stop, and take stock. ALso, to eat some bacon, a roast dinner, drink some alcohol, all the luxuries available in a crazy place like Dubai. I'll be visiting the Burj Khalifa (world's tallest building) and I should probably check out the ski slope. A ski slope in a desert. It's midwinter and 28 degrees. It's only a short hop from Iran to Dubai, but the differences are profound.

Riding Into Summer: Shiraz to the Persian Gulf

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My last couple of weeks in Iran, riding down to the Persian Gulf to catch my ferry to Dubai, reminded me of the vastness of Iran. A country ten times the size of the UK but with the same population has a lot of empty spaces. I felt (mostly) healthy for the first time in a while and I wasn't chasing time so I could take the quieter roads to less-frequented places and make camp at two in the afternoon if I felt like it. Which I often did.

The weather and climate shifted as I rode south and descended from the mountainous terrain which makes most of Iran to the hot flatlands around the Persian Gulf. Lower and warmer. There was still harvesting going on, then palm trees started to appear, and I stripped down to just a couple of layers for the first time since... I couldn't even remember. Probably October.

Riding back into summer while snow fell in Tehran - a few Iranians had told me that Iran is a land of contrasts. I think I'd go further and call it a land of contradictions, as it's a place where you can be met with cold suspicion and warm hospitality. The government wants tourists and their money, but they make you jump through hoops to get a visa and (if you're British) they charge a small fortune for it. The people were the friendliest I've met, but they drive their cars with a cheerful heedlessness, and smile and wave while they're within inches of your bike. Overcoming and dealing with these challenges was part of the fun and it all added spice, making it the most fascinating country I've visited so far. I'd made friends who I'd been sorry to leave behind, and as I had my leisurely ride south through the dry mountains and hills of Hormoz, I wondered if I should have stayed a bit longer, and determined in any case to go back one day.



I had some wonderful camping spots, amongst plantations of palm trees or near Mount Hormoz, where I walked down to the river to fill my bottles with the salty and barely-drinkable water. One scary night, I was awoken by the sound of a huge pack of dogs howling and baying as they passed, what sounded like not much distance away. I lay awake while the sounds passed away, then in the still night I couldn't get back to sleep as every slight sound or rustle was amplified by my imagination into an immediate, intimate risk. I was planning to fight them off with my bicycle pump if they did come close.

Further south, I had a moment of severe grumpiness with a pack of lads on motorcycles who were determined to have a conversation with me when I wanted five minutes by myself to eat my dinner. But, this led to my meething Ehsan, who asked why I was so angry and fed me a huge plate of pasta. Luckily, I regained my sense of humour for the procession of punctures and pump failures which marked my afternoon at his house in Abgarm. Thanks for cheering me up, Ehsan.



There were no hotels and few facilities between Firuz Abad and Bandar Abbas. In fact, the only hotel in Firuz Abad was hugely overpriced so I rode out of town to camp, accompanied by the local kids on motorbikes who practiced their English on me: "Ï love you! What time is it?". And showering was strip-washing in the water reservoirs which dotted the side of the road and, one luxurious day, a waterfall.



I timed my arrival in Bandar Abbas so that I'd only have a couple of nights in hotels before I caught the ferry. It was high season in Bandar Abbas as half of Iran heads south to the warmth, which must be ferocious in summer. To be honest, I was quite hot myself.



The lush beaches and endless sands I'd been expecting of the Persian Gulf coast didn't materialise, but I was quite pleased at the vistas of cranes, lifting equipment, shipyards and oil refineries which marked the coastline. Since I grew up near Teesside and my dad spent most of his working life on the rigs, it made me feel quite at home. Only the blue stillness of the sea gave away that I wasn't sat at Port Clarence...honest!



So farewell to Iran. The next day, I was on the ferry, crossing the Straits of Hormoz, looking at the huge supertankers shipping oil away to Japan, or the USA, and half-expecting the British destroyer to breast the horizon, in response to Iranian threats to blockade the Straits. Again, realpolitik was starting to intrude upon my ordinary life, so it mightn't have been such a bad time to leave after all.

Photos on Flickr

Hospital and Hospitality: through northern Iran from Tabriz to Zanjan

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"Hospital" is a bit dramatic, I admit. But I picked up a strain of flu which has been going around Iran, and it really took it out of me. I tried to cycle out of Zanjan after an unpleasant night's coughing and sweating, riding with the famous Matt and Andy (The Cycle Diaries), a couple of English cyclists I'd met when we all took shelter in a Bostan Abad hotel after riding out of Tabriz and into heavy snow. That was a filthy day, as all the passing cars churned the snow into an Iranian toothpaste of snow, grit, mud, petrol and other thankfully unidentifiable roadside crap. We ate dinner and watched the snow fall - one poor guy cleared his car, then went away for half an hour, and when he came back the snow had covered his car again.



The next day was better: it was bright and clear and the snow had stopped, though it was still thick on the ground. Andy suggested that we should follow the motorway, which was wider and clearer than the parallel road (and the guy at the toll booth just laughed and waved us through - bikes win again), even if the lack of facilities started to make itself felt after a while, and at the end of the day I expected we'd be camping. I'm nearly always quite happy to camp; my rule of thumb is that it should be above freezing during the day to make camping reasonably pleasant, and it certainly was. However, Matt and Andy had a magic letter in Farsi which introduced them and what they were doing - Matt showed this to the guys at a local community centre which was about the only building for miles, and without hesitation we were wved in, fed, watered and entertained for the evening. Iranian hospitality is an amazing thing. They turned out to be a gang of navvies who maintain the motorway between Tabriz and Tehran, and the evening passed with a revolving cast of locals coming and going. While we were eating our second evening meal in the warm, I pointed out to Matt that we could have cycled another ten miles if we'd been willing to camp - well, you wouldn't believe the language he gave me in response.



The navvies even gave up their beds for us, which made me feel a bit guilty until I realised that the floor would probably have been softer.

We had an early start the next day as Matt and Andy had arranged to stay with a cyclist in Zanjan, and we had ninety miles to cover. That was when my flu started to make itself felt, as I had a thich head and heavy legs and a chesty cough made worse by the thick fumes from passing HGVs. It should have been an easy day, as there was a strong tailwind and the terrain rolled up and down, and I'd actually had five days off the bike in Tabriz, but my legs weren't getting the message, so it was a day of endurance as I tried to keep up with the others but ended up watching them ride over the horizon while I gritted my teeth and found a plodding pace I could maintain.

I'd also been stopped for a friendly chat by a passing police car, and Andy asked if I had a sign saying "British Spy" above my head, as I'd already been questioned by the police in Azarshar and Tabriz for about five hours apiece after some friendly locals took me hiking up to what was apparently a strategically vital waterfall in the Sahand Mountains. I could have done with a drink after that.





Actually, the hiking trip to Hargalan was a grand day out, despite the views of police station interiors which followed, and which probably wouldn't feature in the highlights reel of anyone's trip to Iran, but it was a relatively painless affair and there was even a touch of comedy when the sergeant in Tabriz offered me his chai as a gesture of tarof (ceremonial politeness - I was supposed to refuse until the third offer) and I unthinkingly took it, much to his amusement. Hey, I was thirsty.

The walking in the high mountains gave me another excuse to rest up in Tabriz for a few extra days, and it was just bad luck that I picked up the flu. Sina - the cyclist we stayed with in Zanjan - and his family expressed concern that I shouldn't be cycling, but I thought I'd be able to ride it off, and I didn't want to burden these kind people with my illness. However, when it took me two and a half hours to ride seven miles away from Zanjan, I decided to turn back.

Sina and his family were amazingly kind and generous. Here's a picture of the food mountain his mother, Soosan, forced on me before I left.



They had already fed the three of us the night before, and invited the family round for a wonderful evening, although I was a bit too ill and lacking in energy to play the part of the guest to the same standard. I'm sure they understood, and Sina insisted I visit the doctor, which was quite a bit different from the UK experience. Instead of just being told to rest up, it was Blammo! straight in with the penicillin injections, one in each buttock plus another in the right for good measure, followed by a course of antibiotics. I was feeling a bit vague and fuzzy, which didn't stop one of the enthusiastic locals from jabbering at me while I was lying across the bed in the surgery like a slab of meat.

Despite feeling distinctly woolly, the flu did give me a welcome excuse to hang around Zanjan with Sina and his family - we had a look around town at the knives for which it's famous, and at the local picnic areas, and I bought Soosan some flowers as a small thank you for the hospitality we'd been shown. We had discussed bringing a gift before we arrived, but as the only place on the motorway was the service station, we decided that a gift of petrol, banana wafers or twenty Mayfair would not be appropriate. Buying the flowers may have been a tactical error, as it only seemed to increase the amount of food I was given when I left. Not that I'm complaining, as home cooked food in Iran is very good indeed, and quite a contrast to the limited fare available at restaurants.



I'd looked at the distance I had to travel, and the time left on my visa, and my ability to ride, and I made the decision to take a bus down to Esfahan. Time was looking to be a real issue, and something had to give. Sina did say that the ride to Esfahan was boring, but I was skeptical about that, as he'd said the same about the route from Bostan Abad to Zanjan, where we passed between glowing mountains and amongst rocky valleys which reminded me of a snowy Arizona. If that's boring, he should try the A167 down to Busby Stoop ona grey Sunday afternoon.

The night bus was an enjoyable run, especially as I was lucky enough to be seated next to an English speaker from Qom, so I now have an open invitation to stay in Qom, which in another country may have been a polite nothing, but Iranians mean this when they say it. Still, I wasn;t unhappy when he got off, as I could then roll up my fleece and lay it against the window for a pillow and get a couple of hours' sleep before the morning arrival into Esfahan.

Linky to Photos on Flickr.

Into Iran

The day I arrived at the Turkey-Iran border was the day after the UK expelled the Iranian diplomats from their London embassy, and a couple of days after the UK's embassy in Tehran was torn apart by marauding Iranians (acting entirely independently and without any official sanction at all). They even threw a picture of the Queen (gawbless'er) off the balcony. All British diplomats left Iran, so there would be no consular support in the country, I had e-mails from home warning that there would be an ugly, anti-British mood in the country, and the Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to Iran.

Fuck it. I came anyway.

I gave brief thought to turning back and seeing how the situation developed, but you have to be pretty single-minded and stubborn to dump everything and ride across the world on a bike, and I hadn't come so far just to turn back when I was so nearly there. I was a bit nervous when I approached the border, but I can recommend the Kapikóy-Razi border crossing for all your Iran/Turkey needs. It went a long way towards allaying my fears - sitting in a warm office with a bunch of soldiers, being fed satsumas and taught Farsi, while assault rifles lean unattended beneath the desk, can have that effect.

The Turkish side of the border is barren and bleak and has a real end-of-the-world feel about it. It's a high crossing and a big climb to get up to it - I stopped for a rest above Saray, looked around and noticed the silence. No other traffic, no birds or animals. It was even too cold for the ice in the stream to start cracking.

The descent was a joy, too. I whooshed down to the border post, pleased to have chance to collect myself so that I wouldn't be arriving all sweaty and zoned out from the effort.

All the cars and vans that had overtaken me today were still queuing at the border when I arrived. I looked for a way past, and had my encounter with the "passport inspector". He was dressed as a standard Turkish bloke - black trousers, leather jacket - so when he asked for my passport I gave him my best old-fashioned look and asked if he worked there. He said he did, but when I asked for ID he rather lost interest. He did, however, suggest that I could take my bike around the other side of the cars, so it turned out to be a fairly helpful encounter.

I was waved through every check and past every queue, the only exception being when the Iranians were stamping my passport. Part of the issue seemed to be establishing my nationality, as they looked at my passport and asked me if I was Irish. They'd heard of Ireland, and they know about England, but Britain was a new one for them. It did give the Grinning Black Market Money Man chance to insinuate himself next to me, take away my lira and make me a near-millionaire with 930,000 rials. That's about 80 quid, at a guess.

It still took ages to get through the border: I took tea with the Turks, and everyone wanted to chat or say hello. It was wonderful, and I was flying with delight when I left and carried on descending. I had meant to pick up some food, but exhilaration gave me energy. The road is an unfinished dirt road for the first 10 or 15 miles from the border, but that hardly slowed me at all. I had to hold myself back from overtaking the slow wagons as they carefully negotiated the potholes.



Immediately, the world felt different. There was a marked change from Turkey. The first thing I noticed was the trees, which Turkey didn't have. The roads and field margins are lined with tall cypresses, which still have leaves on despite the lateness of the year. Iranian buildings around here are the squat, square mud and brick affairs I associate with the Middle East, and the landscape is crags, rocks, scrub grass. I took advantage of this to camp up a narrow gully, though I had entertained thoughts of carrying on to Khoy.



In the morning I was pleased I hadn't, as the descent through that rocky gorge was a marvel. Epic views around every bend, and the first sight of the huge arch railway bridge across the gorge may have caused me to utter a swearword in awe.

[photograph deleted by Iranian police, sadly]

Welcome to Iran.

Erzurum Doings

Everyone I spoke to in Turkey told me not to come to Erzurum. They said it was too high and too cold. Eddie in Ankara said that in winter the snow is higher than the street, two guys who'd grown up there said they'd left cos it was shite, and whenever I told a Turkish person my destination, they shivered to warn me how cold it would be. Mr Turhan, the Honorary German Consulate in Sivas, very subtly and gently tried to dissuade me from going.

I had little choice about going to Erzurum, as I'd arranged to collect my Iranian visa there, but the uniformly negative reaction made me more determined to go and see if it was true.

There's no denying it was cold: from Erzincan where I camped in relatively balmy conditions there was a gradual height gain, and the water was freezing in my bottles as I rode into Erzurum. But what a ride! I was lucky enough to have good weather on the passes (and there are lots of mountain passes) and the views were awesome. The clouds had vanished, so it was all blue skies, pure white snow and crisp air. It was painfully bright.



Erzurum itself is quite a pleasant little city: small enough to be big enough. It's compact and easy to walk around, but the facilities are good so I stocked up on food and supplies and talked myself out of getting more camping equipment at the outdoor shop. I checked into a fleabag hotel which was cheap and central and where they weren't bothered about me cooking in my room.



There's not a great deal for tourists. I did see the sight, the famous citadel which is the symbol of the city, but it was closed for renovation and covered in scaffolding. I was surprised at how small it was. It was far less impressive than Hasankale Castle in nearby Pasinler, a crag-top edifice which I passed under when I left Erzurum.

It had a relaxed atmosphere, and I imagine it would be a great place to come during the summer to escape the heat at lower altitudes and explore the surrounding area. I was going to visit Tortum waterfall at the north of the city, but it was difficult to get to and one of the locals told me that it was not very impressive at this time of year. He was the only person I met who spoke much English and most people spoke none, except maybe a phrase or two.

I suppose it's a difference in perspective. I saw Erzurum as a pause on my route and not the ultimate destination. As a destination there are better places, but as a calling-point on a journey, and somewhere to take stock on that journey, and for the quite special mountain roads which surround it, Erzurum is in the right place.

I left Erzurum the day after I'd arranged my visa, and when I was leaving, a guy in a shop asked me where I was going next. To save a long explanation I simply named the next town, Agri. His face dropped and he shivered to warn me how cold it would be. Plus ça change.

Kayseri-seri

Sometimes it's just a matter of plodding on and accumulating distance towards the next place.

It's been a grey, hazy sort of day, and I thought my planned route around Mount Erciyes would be a complete waste of time, as I would have seen nowt but cloud and murk, so I skipped that bit. I did have a quick tour of Göreme National Park and had my photo taken by some tourists queuing at the entrance. I would have waved and posed for them, but the steep, cobbled descent was taking all my attention.

I had my first puncture of the trip, and naturally enough while I was fixing it the rain was at its heaviest. Not that it was ever especially heavy, and it came with a lovely south westerly breeze which was behind me all day. When I rode past Kayseri I looked south towards Mount Erciyes and I was pleased that I hadn't gone that way, as the southern horizon was smothered by dark clouds and rain. I nipped into the outskirts of the city to get a few provisions, then back out onto the bypass; Kayseri was bigger than I'd realised, and I did not want to ride through city traffic if I could avoid it. The bypass was smooth and quiet, and it took me three hours to circumnavigate Kayseri.

It wasn't a day where I ever felt inspired, but not every day can be as good as the last few have been. It wasn't a tough day, it was just another day on the road.

How I Won Over Cappadocia: 09/11/2011 and 10/11/2011

"I want to see mountains," I told someone in Antwerp in a very Bilbo Baggins-esque way. Since my route through Europe followed the rivers, there weren't any mountains to be seen there, and I've had to wait until Cappadocia for real mountains.

It hasn't disappointed; from Aksaray, I was riding along the Peristreme Valley, and the great bulk of Mount Hasan glowered over the whole area. I was riding towards it for two days, and I chose a campsite within sight of it, so when the sun set and the moon rose, its slopes glowed in the moonlight.


The Peristreme/Ihlara Valley was a rare beauty as well, a narrow patchwork of rocky canyons and volcanic remains riddled with ancient dwellings and churches burrowed into the caves and canyon walls where the early Christians hid from persecution. Even the modern houses and inhabitants use the caves as parts of their houses, or as cool storage spaces during the hot summers. I'm enjoying the cool bright November days here, but this place must be a boiling hell in the summer.

Mountains means climbing, though not as much as you might expect. This region seems to be a series of plateaus, and the passes between them are not especially steep, though they are very high. On Tuesday night I camped near the summit of Sivrihisar Pass, at an altitude of 1600 metres ASL. The highest I've ever camped, or even been on a bike.

I chose a spot not too close to the road, and next to a water trough which I used for cooking and washing - and drinking. It seemed to be flowing straight from the mountain, so I thought it would be fine.

Camping next to a water source and on a well-trodden footpath with livestock tracks on it is bound to have consequences, and since I lazed in my tent until well after 8, waiting for the sun to rise and warm the ground (the night had been so cold that I'd used my bivvy bag as a sleeping bag outer for the first time), while I was eating my breakfast semolina the cattle arrived to drink their morning water, then the donkey, then the sheep, and finally Ahmad and Jamal, two very serious boys who were shepherding during their school holiday. I gave them half a pack of extra strong mints to share, they gave me a bit of their dinner, and they watched me strike camp with unnerving intensity. I gave them a wave as I rode away up the pass.



I was reminded of how lucky I am to be in such a dry climate; the one water source had frozen into ice across the road in Sivrihisar Village. The rest of the pass, though, was dry and clear and fabulous for cycling.



It was a day of kids being interested in me and my bike. The constant shouts of "Hallo!" did wear after a while, but I answered most of them with a wave, if not a smile as well. Most of them. I stopped for an afternoon snack and when a young lad came over saying "hello", I pissed off straightaway, saying "I just want five minutes to myself!" I'm sure I heard him shout "Arsehole" after me. He was certainly shouting something. Ten minutes before that, one young boy stood in front of me to make me stop, but I won that particular game of chicken. I was going slowly enough to have braked before I hit him, but also slowly enough that he could chase after me and try to grab hold of a pannier. I snarled at him to let go: I guess I don't always deal too well with being the centre of attention.

I had been in a much better temper earlier in the day, when I'd stopped in Ciftlik for some bread and snacks; a gang of young lads gathered round my bike, so I offered the nearest one a ride on it, and had to stifle my laughter when he could hardly balance it, let alone ride it. He was pleased to have made the attempt, though, and one of his mates rode alongside me for a while over the next pass, Sekkin Bogazi Pass, where the tallest mountain in Cappadocia, Mount Erciyes, first came into view. I hope to ride along Tekir Pass when I leave this area, as that rises to 2500 metres beside Mount Erciyes, and should be spectacular, if the days are as bright and clear as they have been.

For today, though, I'll enjoy wandering around the fantasy rock formations of Göreme National Park. It's completely off season, but there is still a fair dusting of tourists in the area. This place must be grockle central in the summer, judging by the number of guesthouses and shops selling souvenirs. It's quite a contrast to the serenity of the upper Peristreme Valley and the down-home realness of Ihlara, but quite an enjoyable change as well. I'm off the bike today, and no one gives me a second look.

Cappadocia Calling: 05/11/2011 to 08/11/2011

I nearly didn't remember the fifth of November. I had thought of buying a few fireworks to mark the date, and I doubted I would have had any problems. All I need to buy a gun here is a valid passport, so fireworks are probably given away free with breakfast cereal.

But I didn't buy any fireworks and I didn't even have a bonfire as there was no wood near where I camped; it was quite an exposed spot, so I couldn't have hidden any fire. Since Ankara, finding decent campsites has been tough as there's so little cover, with barely a fold in the turf to hide me. None of the landowners are bothered, but the police might be (on Saturday night, I camped within a km of the police station, I realised the next day), and it's the principle of the thing to camp as subtly as possible, wherever possible.

On Sunday night I didn't have any choice but to wait until nightfall and pitch my tent as far away from the road as I could be bothered to go, but still within sight of it, as all around there it was flat flat flat. There was ice on my tent again that morning: this is nearly a desert climate, so there's little rain and the days are warm, but at night when the skies are clear the temperatures just fall away. I've had to melt ice for my morning coffee every day since Ankara.

The region north of Cappadocia and south of Ankara is dominated by Tuz Gölü or Salt Lake. When I rode past on Sunday it was busy with Turks paddling in the shallow water. Despite the lake's size, the water rarely gets deeper than a metre, and there were people walking way out into the middle of it. The shore of the lake was hard and calcified white from the salt deposits and the water was a cloudy mirror. It was beautiful, and the road followed the lakeshore for miles.



I wasn't disturbed that night except by the roar of the traffic on the D750, and the shepherds and I exchanged nods while I was striking camp in the morning, so it was all good.

Tonight's campsite is much better. I've entered Cappadocia proper, and you don't get views like this from many hotels, at least not at prices I can afford. I'm hunkering amongst the rocks above the Ihlara Valley like Holmes on Dartmoor, out of sight of everything but the huge mass of Hasan Dagi/Mount Hasan. The sun sets before five at this time of year but the fattening moon is making the rocky landscape glow. Shame it's too cold to sit outside the tent for long.

Cant-Ankara-ous

I hate negotiating cities on my bike. I find it stressful and unnerving. They're all laid out differently and the traffic levels are always higher and the driving standards are lower, and there's pressure to find somewhere to stop, as I don't have my usual fallback of pitching my tent behind the nearest stand of trees.

In Budapest I wandered around for an afternoon without finding a hostel or tourist information, and the hostel I eventually found was full, and the staff didn't feel the need to tell me that until I'd dragged my bike up the stairs into the lobby, or bother to point me towards an alternative. In Sofia I arrived in the dark, wet and bedraggled, and couldn't explain to the otherwise very helpful waiter at a handy restaurant the distinction between a hotel and a hostel. In Vienna, I rode in circles around the endless boulevards and the frustrating Ringstrasse for two hours, trying to find Westerbahnhof or even somebody who knew where it was, but the closest I got was a sign saying that it was 4 km away (and no other signs after that one) and a tram going to Westerbahnhof. Or, possibly, coming from there. Two hours of frustration and no sign of a tourist information. I stopped by yet another tram stop and realised that in those two hours I hadn't seen a single thing I wanted to see again, and having realised that, I left the place without regrets. I slept rough in Wiener Prater, far and away the best part of Vienna, and left at first light.

Ankara was not the worst, but it is a deeply unpleasant city to cycle around. I timed my arrival to coincide with rush hour so as to add an extra element of danger. Filtering through the traffic was a bit fraught, but what choice did I have? The only alternative route was the 20-foot high pedestrian footbridge, and dragging my bike up there would have drained my last strength, with no guarantee that it led anywhere. Ankara is OK to walk around as long as you don't mind stairs (don't apply if you're a wheelchair user), or to drive around, but not to cycle. I crossed to the left hand lane of yet another five-lane road and swore back at the drivers who were beeping their horns at me, and dragged my bike into the hotel lobby. It was full, so I had to go back out and repeat the rigmarole in reverse.

Trying to find a different hotel was no picnic either; I thought I'd just wander until I found one and stop there, as long as it wasn't that expensive. But Ankara doesn't work like that. I was in a street of bars, and getting sick of riding, and there were no hotels for about two miles. It was 8 o'clock and a bit chilly - probably too chilly to bivvy down in the park, if I could find the park, but I was starting to think about it. I stopped at an English-themed bar called Pub Bla Bla to get a meal, as I hadn't eaten since early afternoon and I wasn't thinking straight.

Turns out, the owner of the place used to work in Newcastle, and we had a good chin-wag and he showed me around his pub and when I left he pointed me towards Ulus, the district where I was most likely to find a reasonably priced hotel. The beer and food perked me up, too. I followed Eddie's directions and stopped at the first hotel I saw. I asked for (and got) a slight discount, but at 80 lira that was still a few days' budget. However, when I got to the room and showered and lounged on the double bed in front of some hilarious Turkish TV, I didn't mind so much.

I was still desperate to leave, though, so I didn't even stop for breakfast the next day. Ankara doesn't have much to appeal to the tourist, since it's mostly government: other cyclists and locals I'd spoken to told me not to bother going there, but as it was on my natural route from Bolu to Cappadocia, it was easier to go through than to avoid.



I followed the main road out of town, which was a busy six-lane dual carriageway climbing up the big hill at the south of the city. Riding so slowly up that hill seemed to take ages. I put my iPod on to drown out the noise of the cars. Yet more beeping, yet more swearing at motorists.

Thankfully the hill didn't last more than a few miles and I hit 40 mph on the descent, and finally I raised my fist in triumph when I reached the sign that told me I'd left Ankara and was back on the open road.

Dragons and Dinosaurs: On my Own in Bavaria

I must have spent too long in the sun, which is still quite strong at southern latitudes. Certainly too strong and too south for a northerner like me. I tried to ride, but I had absolutely no energy, fell asleep on the grass, then threw up when the strengthening sun started to take effect. I took the hint. I'd passed a campsite a mile or two back - a beautiful spot beside some rapids on the Altmuhl, where I dossed the day away, chatting to the locals including a guy in a Stetson who'd first camped and canoed there 25 years ago, and a dotty Bavarian psychologist who introduced himself with a riff on his harmonica. I also met Hans the Bavarian Boatman, who possessed the most wonderful rolling Bavarian accent. He was from Munich and escaping the Oktoberfest madness by boating down the Altmuhl.

I had an early start the next day, passing Hans downstream, and I was in Eichstätt before the rush hour started. The Altmuhl valley has a rich geological history. Millions of years ago, it bore the main flow of the Danube, but the geology shifted and now the size of the river hardly seems to do justice to the huge valley through which it flows, and which dwarfs it. The Altmuhl is also where Archaeopteryx and other famous fossils were discovered, but I decided not to visit the museum: onward!





The Altmuhl loops north after Eichstätt. I decided to cut the corner, knowing that this was likely to mean tackling a few hills. I do enjoy the challenge of hills, but the steep valley walls looked rather forbidding. The route, however, was quite well graded, except for a steep path through the forest. However, the forest was sublimely quiet. I stopped in the chamber of trees and once again I imagined myself as Bilbo Baggins, traipsing through Mirkwood on his way to meet the dragon.



I was enjoying being on my own again. I set my sights on Landshut, the Danube, and the road to Austria.

Chasing the Kingfisher: down the Tauber and Altmuhl with Felix,September 2011

"Federalüntergerauntenflederhafenschaften" is how the sign read, I think. Forgive my poor memory, and worse German. Felix laughed when he saw it, as it meant "Federally Approved Place of Relaxation". This being Germany, it obviously meant that we wouldn't be able to relax anywhere else, so we were obliged to ride through southern Germany in a state of heightened tension. Damn those Germans and their rules!

I'd met Felix earlier that day, when I was riding out of Frankfurt while suffering from the kind of hangover you get when you spend the night drinking with a gang of young Americans on their way to Oktoberfest in Munich. It was too bright and I was going very slowly. He overtook me when I stopped to remove something from my wheel, then I leapfrogged him when he stopped to check his map. He addressed me in German, then again in English when he registered my incomprehension, and when he told me about his plan to ride along the Tauber river, it sounded far more interesting than my planned route. The Tauber Valley is known as "Lieberlisch Taubertal" on the publicity brochures and maps, it is home to many wild birds and animals and possesses natural beauty which was only enhanced by the first blush of autumn in the trees and the sunshine of the Indian Summer which I was enjoying through Europe, though the Germans have a different phrase for it: Altweibersommer, oldladysummer. The towns along the Tauber all show signs of its rich history. They each had a medieval Altstadt, most notably Rothenburg, where Japanese tourists pointed their cameras at Felix and I cycling up the cobbles rather than the glockenspiel display in the town square. There were other signs of the Tauber's history, such as the beautiful stone bridges which had been built with church money and were adorned with statues of the local saints or bishops holding crosses in attitudes supposedly of religious contemplation, but they mostly reminded me of axe-wielding rock stars.



For at least the second time since I'd left the UK I had chucked away my plans and went a completely different route. One of the delights of cycle touring is the flexibility and freedom which you don't have when you travel by plane or train and have to keep to timetables not of your own making.

Chance companions are another: Felix bristled with information about the natural history of the region, its geology and wildlife and plantlife. He told me that of all the wild creatures that dwelt along the Tauber, the one he most wanted to see was the kingfisher. It's a small, elusive bird with brilliant blue plumage, and it lives by rivers such as the Tauber, perching on a branch at the river's edge, watching the water flow beneath and waiting for the moment to dive into the stream and re-emerge with a silvery fish clutched in its beak.

As we rode along, then, Felix and I would pause at the bridges and other places where the kingfisher was likely to be found, hoping to see it.

We did see kites, kestrels, magpies and pied wagtails, oystercatchers, hares and foxes, yellowhammers twittering in the trees, huge pike lazily turning under the bridges we crossed, and buzzards whose cries came down through the trees at our camping site in the abandoned orchard. At least, it should have been abandoned - Felix assured me that the apple trees above us were too old to be commercial crops... Which was true, as the farmer told us herself when she came past on her horse to check the new orchards in the top field. She was so flabbergasted to see campers that she could only say to her horse, "look at that, look at that". Felix proved to be a bit of a jinx when it came to choosing campsites; the next night, we camped by a quiet pond, on a dirt track which was quieter than quiet, apart from the yahoos who used it is a shortcut between their village and the local drinking hole. The next night, in deepest Mittelfranken, we went along an empty track and through a stand of trees to camp at the forest fringe, but even there, just as we were cooking our supper, we could hear the putter-putter of an approaching engine.

We tensed as the tractor approached, but the driver refused even to look at us as he passed, so we relaxed (despite not being in a federally approved place of relaxation), and just as we were opening our Bavarian beers, we heard the putter-putter returning, with reinforcements. I felt as though we'd wandered onto the main road when I saw the tractor and two other cars turn the corner, and both Felix and I thought we were due to be chased off the land, if not threatened with guns.

However, they were delighted to see us there. I'm told that wild camping was legal in Germany until the 1960s, and people seemed to remember that and enjoy seeing us carrying on the tradition, or perhaps they were entertained by the sight of a pair of mad cyclists camping in a field. The farmer pulled his Mercedes over and showed us off to his young son in the passenger seat, and insisted on giving us a pumpkin. When they'd gone, and the tractor had putter-puttered back the way it came, Felix and I turned to each other and burst out laughing.


The pumpkin made a good supper. Food is food, and when it's free it's twice as good. Autumn is a fabulous time to be on the road, when the trees and hedgerows are filled with fruits and berries ripe to be picked. I've probably never eaten as healthily as I did during that month in Europe.



We even found a plum tree by the Tauber; I used my flag to knock them from the branches down to Felix beneath, who caught as many as he could. We stopped on the next bridge to eat them and to watch a huge heron which was waiting on a rock in the stream as if it was about to launch itself into the air. I leaned against the handrail, popped a plum into my mouth, then tried to shout "kingfisher!" around it. Felix turned in time to see the kingfisher fly underneath the bridge in a flash of blue and then away downstream. That glimpse was the most we saw of a kingfisher, but that glimpse was enough. We didn't follow it downstream but continued upstream, to the south and the Altmuhl, chasing the summer.

The Belgium-Germany border: 16/09/2011 to 18/09/2011

Dark brooding forests and grey days and rain. I checked into a campsite and only realised my mistake when the two minibuses of insufferably jolly young Dutch persons parked to either side of me. Even with earplugs and a buff round my head they were making enough noise to wake me at one in the morning.

I'd stopped on the long climb away from Verviers, telling myself any number of reasons - the road would be quieter on a Saturday, the weather would be better - but really I stopped because I couldn't be bothered. My mood had nosedived, I felt lonely and isolated and I was asking myself what I was doing there. Nothing unusual in that, except the usual answers didn't hold their usual power to keep me going.

I plodded along in isolation on the Saturday and the Sunday, and spent a terrible couple of nights where I kept waking up unable to breathe. I opened the tent and gulped in the cool night air, read for a bit until I felt tired again, fell asleep and started the whole cycle again. It also rained on the Sunday night and morning. Striking camp in the rain is a depressing activity - everything's wet and it's going to stay wet.

I grabbed a couple of apples from beside the Mosel near Zell and munched them at the roadside. I was in no mood to go on. I was on the verge of tears all day, not because it was wet or because I was on my own, simply because I was homesick. When I had slept I'd dreamt of home, and friends and family.

The climb out of the Mosel Valley is 7 km long. I know this as the information was shared by a cheerful local cyclist. Too cheerful for me - I was polite but I was in no mood to chat, and he soon dropped back to chivvy his friend along. The poor sod was going even slower than me.

The tears were coming all the time, and eventually I pulled into a layby and sobbed to myself for ten minutes. It didn't lift my brown mood, but at least I felt I could carry on. One of the thoughts that kept me going was that I hadn't tolerated a job I disliked just to turn tail after a week, and as my sister said in a text message, they'd all still be there when I got back.

A truly bewildering encounter with a mad old German next - I knocked on his door and asked for water, he ignored me and threw some nutshells into the road. I wasn't to be dismissed so easily, and said more insistently: "Wasser, bitte." He still refused to look at me. I followed him towards his house, though, and he knew I was there as he scraped his feet on his drive to indicate that I should wipe my feet. Despite showing my proficiency at this task, he obviously thought I was some sort of simpleton, as he wouldn't let me turn on the tap myself. I don't know what was going on - maybe he thought my grandad killed his brother in the war. Maybe he wasn't used to passers-by. More likely, he was just a miserable old sod.

Pondering this kept my mood up, as did the improving weather, though the proximity of ear-splitting engine whine from dozens of fucking too-powerful cars and motorbikes on their way to the nearby Nurburgring certainly didn't. Tossers.

Sunday in Germany is a miserable place. Nothing's open - it took me ages to find a garage where I could buy some milk and beer, and I got lost trying to avoid one of the Autobahns. I left Simmern, rode another 10 miles, then had to come back to Simmern and found myself back at the same, closed, supermarket.

I did at least have a good tailwind, so I struck east when I eventually found a cyclable route out of Simmern. I wanted to get to the Rhein that night. Unfortunately there appeared to be a huge hill in the way, near Bacharach. I said a little prayer that it wouldn't be too hard, as I hadn't the energy. I kept following the cycle route signs for Oberheimbach and Niederheimbach, but without much hope. "Ober" always means a bastard of a hill.

I had to stop a couple more times for a cry - the landscape was beautiful, gentle rolling hills and a deserted road winding through pine forests, but I could only think of home.



Something strange happened near Oberheimbach - I still can't work out the topography, but the hill which I didn't want to climb never appeared. The road tracked the Heimbach (Heim Beck) down, down and down some more to the milky waters of the Rhein. The sunset was putting on quite a display behind me, but I was far too relieved to stop - it's a strange feeling, when an obstacle you expect to encounter fails to materialise. I hardly pedalled through Oberheimbach and Niederheimbach, freewheeling all the way down to the Rhein. I found a campsite, which was rubbish, but there were some very friendly people there, and I had another night's disturbed sleep, but that was owing to the busyness of the Rhein Valley - two railway lines, two busy roads and endless traffic up and down the waterway. I still felt homesick and isolated, but I'd been to the Rhein Valley before, so I was in familiar terrain, and I'd come through a tough mental patch, and that gave me the fortitude to carry on riding.


Der Rhein!