Russ Rides the World

Enter the Dragon

2011-11-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

Back in Flores…

The bike had been handling quite badly, pulling to the right and trying to tank slap while under engine breaking. After checking out everything from the bearings, the forks and the headstock, I concluded that it must be the worn front tyre. Luckily, I’d managed to pick up a motocross tyre in Kupang, it was only 1cm wider than the recommended size, it would do.
After replacing the tyre the tank slapping stopped but it would take a little while before the tyre wore in and the handling improved as is the way with new tyres, especially ones that are not the correct size.
I’d never had a tyre lose it’s shape before. I must admit I’ve been less than an impressed with the Metzler Tourance, not as good as a road tyre on tarmac and about the same as a road tyre off road.

Once the tyre was replaced we took the short ride East to Moni and a visit to the famous colourful volcanic lakes of Kelimutu.

Moni..

Rising early the next morning, we hopped on the bike and made the 10 mile ride up the slopes of the volcano to the car park and then sauntered up to the edge of the first crater. Unfortunately the view was obscured, but as the sun rose the clouds started to burn away revealing the brightly coloured lakes below.

Kelimutu has 3 lakes all of different colours, changing during the season from turquoise, blues, greens, reds, and sometimes black depending on the time of year and the up-welling of minerals from the volcanic activity below.

It was a nice sight but with a full day ahead of us we made our way back down the mountain, packed the bike and headed off West along the Trans-Flores Highway.
The tyre was starting to wear in nicely and it was great to get a second chance at riding the road I’d enjoyed so much a couple of weeks previously.

Ende's Traditional Farewell!

Road to Bajawa

Bajawa…

Bajawa, the highest town in Flores has a cooler more temperate climate, a refreshing change from the hot sweaty temperatures of the coastline and a good base for exploring the traditional villages in the surrounding hills.

We checked in to a hotel just outside town and grabbed some food and a couple of beers before everything closed for the evening.

The following day we headed off to check out a couple of local villages, some hot springs and the little back-roads that wind their way through the mountains.

Bena Countryside

Bena has been touted as the one of the best preserved Ngada villages in Flores. Since the 80’s the village elders have been working with a national organisation to preserve the traditions and culture while creating sustainable tourism to bring much needed revenue for the village. It was interesting to see the weaving and how villages across large areas of Flores must have once looked, with traditional thatched roofs and stone monoliths, the focus of religious ritual and the resting place of dead relatives.
While families still live in the village, it had a bit of a feel of an ethnic village theme park which is understandable when tourists are thrown into the equation.

The village of Bena

We took a rough road through the mountainous forest to a lovely natural hot-spring at the confluence of a freezing cold mountain river and a steaming hot volcanic stream. It was bliss to lie around in the pools where the rivers met, the first hot bath we’d had in a long time.

Hotsprings

We weren’t quite so lucky with the weather the next day, cutting across the mountain tops the heavens opened and it proceeded to pour down for the next 2 or 3 hours. Thankfully after passing Ruteng the rain started to abate and we pulled in for a warming coffee, looking like drowned rats.

Road to Labuhan Bajo

On my way East two weeks earlier, I’d passed an area where the locals seemed to be mining the mountain slopes next to the main road and I’d promised myself I’d stop and take a closer look on my way back to Labuan Bajo.
I pulled over and took a few photos, as the guys waved from the dangerous looking dirt cliffs.
While snapping away, a guy came up and started speaking to us in pretty good English, which is sort of surprising in Flores. It turned out that his wife worked as an English teacher at the local school and as a result his linguistic skills had also benefited.
Apparently the workers were mining boulders from the cliffs to be ground up into powder and then turned into bricks for house building. Teetering on homemade bamboo ladders and gouging away at the face by hand, it’s certainly not a job for the faint of heart with collapses and injury a common occurrence. Life can certainly be tough on the edge of existence.

Cliff Mining

It was dark when we finally made it to Labuan Bajo and took a room at Chez Felix.

The next day we booked a trip to the Komodo Islands and then spent the day having a few beers and eating some wonderful wood fired oven pizzas with real cheese, the best I’d had since leaving Europe!

We’d opted for a little bit of luxury with a 2 day trip to Rinca and Komodo. Bar a small island only used for scientific research, the 2 islands are the last bastions of the endangered Komodo Dragon.
It would be 2 days of good food, snorkelling, wildlife spotting and a night sleeping under the stars out on the deck of the boat, nice.

Boat ride to Rinca

Rinca and Komodo are 2 of the driest places in the Nusa Tenggara island chain, sandwiched between Sumbawa and Flores the landscape is characterised by low rolling treeless hills interspersed with wooded gullies reminiscent of Southern Spain.

Rinca..

We checked into the ranger station. After being assigned a guide we headed off on a loop through the Rincan countryside.

Almost immediately after leaving the camp we spotted our first dragon at the side of the trail….

The Dragons once lived across much of the mainland of Nusa Tenggara but due to the loss of habitat and prey the numbers have dwindled to 2500, leaving them firmly on the World Wildlife endanger species list.
Komodo Dragons have a life span of 50-55 years, being solitary creatures they only come together during the mating season to fight and compete for the attention of a female.

Komodo Dragons are stealth hunters. Feeding on Wild buffalo, pigs, horses and deer, they lay in wait for prey to pass or sneak up on sleeping animals and strike before moving away to prevent injury.

It was widely thought that the dragon killed by infecting it’s victim with huge amounts of bacteria due to rotting meat in it’s mouth; a recent study by Australian scientists suggests otherwise.
It’s now believed a powerful toxin is injected from glands in the mouth prevent the victim’s blood from clotting, resulting in a slow death over several weeks during which time the dragon will diligently track the animal, waiting for it to weaken enough to be captured.
Eating only once a month, they consume half their body weight in meat in one sitting, enough to see them through to the next kill.

Prey and Predator

Once impregnated, the female digs a pit and buries up to 20 eggs of which 15% will survive. She then guards the nest for the first 3-4 months before leaving them to fend for themselves. The gestation period for the baby Dragon is 8-9 months, once hatched they dig their way to freedom.

Nesting Dragon

Due to the fact Komodo Dragons are cannibalistic; the life of a young dragon is a precarious one. To avoid being eaten, even by their own mother, they spend the first year living in trees eating small insects and other lizards, only returning to the ground when reaching a metre in length.

We left Rinca and took a short ride to our mooring spot near a mangrove island full of Flying Foxes. It was a truly idyllic spot, watching the sun go down as the foxes left their roost for the evening.

Sundown with the Flying Foxes

Next stop the bigger island of Komodo.

Komodo…

We set off on a walk across Komodo.

Komodo

Komodo dragons can move very fast over a short distance.
We’d been told a story from February this year of a guide that had been bitten on the back of his ankle by one of the dragons frequently found hanging around camp on Rinca. Drawn by the smell of cooking food, it’s not unusual to see half a dozen specimens baking themselves in the sun.
While the physical wound was not life threatening, the other staff had immediately poured alcohol on to his leg in attempt to slow infection; the ranger was then flown to Bali and underwent a 6 hour operation to save his life.

I could certainly understand the respect and the constant calls from the rangers to ‘keep your distance‘.

Rounding a corner and coming across a fair sized specimen, the ranger we’d been assigned turned to me and told me ’get your camera ready’. He then proceeded to jab the Komodo in the tail and rear legs until it got up and scampered away.
I looked across at Helen, she had the same look of surprise and shock on her face that I must have been displaying. Definitely a different style and I’m sure one that doesn’t appear in the park ranger’s handbook…

The 2 day trip was over and we’d arranged to spend 4 days on the small island of Serayu to have some relaxed time before Helen headed back to Medan and I headed back West.

Manta Rays on the way to Serayu

Serayu..

Serayu is a small island with a dozen basic beach huts and a fishing village on the far side of the island 30 minutes’ walk away.

With no naturally occurring freshwater, all water is shipped in from the mainland and is only available for 1 hour each day, enough time to fill a couple of buckets for washing.
Surprisingly this brought some added bonuses. The mosquito, the blight of countries all over the world and hated by anyone who’s traveled in tropical climes, requires a fresh water source to lay their eggs. Result!

An English couple I’d bumped into several times since Lambata came strolling down the beach as Helen and me wallowed in the warm tropical seas. Flores is just one of those places where you keep bumping into the same people again and again.

Arriving a Serayu

After 4 days relaxing it was time to head back to the mainland so Helen could catch her flight back to Sumatra and I could get the ferry heading back West to Sumbawa.

After saying our farewells I started the blast back up to Lombok to get my soon to expire visa extended....

Riding Nirvana

2010-12-03T03:53:00.000-08:00

Bali - part 2….

I don’t want to write too much about my time in Bali as there’s really not that much interesting stuff to talk about.
Hasten to say I had a good time relaxing on the beaches in the South and had a funny time with a friend from back home. Kate was in Bali on a 2 week holiday. We spent a couple of days having a relaxed time, drinking, eating and generally soaking up the sun.

I left the South and headed off to Northern Bali via Ubud and the volcanoes in the centre of the island.

Upon leaving Ubud a couple of days later, I headed to a place called Lovina on the North coast.
I planned to stay there for a week while waiting for a new debit card, which I’d managed to lose while sober, to be delivered to the Fedex office in Ubud.

I rocked up in Lovina and found a cheap little cottage close to the beach. Taking a look around Lovina, I stopped at a café and asked one of the customers if they had wifi in the establishment. I instantly recognised his accent and found out that he came from Middlesbrough, a mere 10 miles from my home town of Darlington. We got on like a house on fire, united by the love of ‘The Boro’, the football team I’d supported from a small child, and our North roots. I met up with Marty and his cousin Sue, who was on a month long holiday from Australia, for a few drinks in the evening.

After having a good night, Marty suggested that I come and stay at his place in a small village 10km’s away rather than in the fairly run down and drab place I’d been staying.

I had a great week in luxurious surrounding with some funny nights out but the week was up so I headed back to Ubud to pick up my cards and make my way East towards Lombok. As Sue hadn’t seen much of the island, I gave her a lift to Ubud on my way back. It was funny to see someone new to bike travel and peoples reactions, something that you get used when you’ve been travelling awhile and been through the frenzy that is India. Sue later told me that she felt like the coolest 50 year old in town, made me chuckle.

I’d like to say a big thank you to Marty and Sue for making me feel so welcome in your home. My door will always be open if you get the chance to make your way up to Malaysia.

Lombok..

Getting of the ferry I made the short trip to Senggigi, a beach resort on the West coast. The town was pretty quiet and after speaking to Elvis I made the decision to leg it down to the far end of Flores to go and see the traditional whaling on Lambata. Quickly crossing the tiny island of Lombok I jumped on the 1hr ferry that took me to Sumbawa and head off East. I’d planned to take a closer look at Lombok on the way back up.

Sumbawa..

Sumbawa, being devoutly Muslim is one of the poorest islands in the Nusa Tenggara island chain, it’s a world away from the well established tourist islands of Bali and Lombok. Even though poorer than it‘s richer cousins, Sumbawa shows little signs of any real poverty. Being 3 times the size of Lombok but with a third of the people, Sumbawa is a very rural island with on the surface a very self sufficient and happy population.

The shouts of ‘hello Mr’ rang through the air as I passed through towns and villages.

I’d been making good progress on the pole holed road that runs down the length of the island, when I felt a wobble in the bikes handling, a flat rear tyre! As is always the way, flats seem to come just before dusk, time to break out the tools and head torch.
While taking the wheel off, a local pulled up and kindly offered to give me a hand, 4 hands was certainly better than 2.
In true Indonesian style, I was offered the floor in his living room for the night at his family house in the village of Empang, a short ride away. I couldn’t have received a warmer welcome from the family and his wife then set about cooking up some nasi (rice) and instant noodles.

A pleasant evening was had talking about family, our countries and giving a bit of a slide show of home and the places I’d visited round the world. He’d spent 5 years working in Bali so spoke some English.
After losing his government job a few years ago life had been quite hard and was having to resort to motorbike taxiing to make a bit of money to feed his family.

The grinding noise his bike was making told me that his scooter was in dire need of a new chain and sprocket. I offered to buy him a new set to say thank you for everything he’d done for me and so he could keep providing for his family in the future.
The next day we bought the parts and I waved goodbye to the family and headed for the ferry to Flores.

I must admit that I’d come to question the travel I’d been doing since Java and Bali. I wasn’t sure whether I’d become tired of the travel or it had all become a bit too easy and not the adventure I’d had in mind when I left the UK. Spending a couple of days in Sumbawa instantly revived the feeling that a new adventure was unfolding.

FLORES

Flores differs from the other islands I’d visited in Indonesia. Formerly occupied by the Portuguese, the island is predominately Catholic which was a change from the majority of the countries I’d visited since leaving Europe over a year ago.

I landed in Labuhan Bajo the ferry port in the west of Flores and the gateway to Komodo, the home of the world famous Komodo Dragon. Sightseeing would have to wait for the time being, I was under strict instructions not to do any touristy stuff. I had plans to re-visit the whole of Flores with Helen after our visit to West Timor.

After a good nights sleep I headed off along the serpentine Trans-Flores Highway forging it’s way down the length of the country to my meeting with Elvis and a trip to the eastern archipelago.

After 14 hours and 550Km’s I rocked up at Wodong Beach Cottages 30km’s east of Maumere to smiles, handshakes from Elvis and Jamie, an Australian biker travelling round SE Asia, a plate of food and a cold beer.

You run out of superlatives to describe Flores. Eye wateringly beautiful, it‘s the Miss World of islands. Towering volcanoes, lush verdant jungle, picture post card beaches, traditional villages and friendly people, it really has it all.
Simple put, it’s the best road I’d ever ridden in my life. 550km’s of endless twisting bends on predominately excellent tarmac, through the most amazing scenery.

After 3 days on the beach spent relaxing, fishing, visiting local villages and a bat cave, Elvis and myself knocked off the last 100km’s to the ferry port in Larentuka to catch the boat to Lambata the home of one of the worlds last traditional whaling communities.

Arriving at the port it soon became clear there wasn’t a car ferry going to the islands, the locals were using the front of boats to transport their bikes. With the impossibly steep wooden planks stretched across the harbour waters we decided to err on the side of caution and stash the bikes at a hotel on the mainland and take the fast boat to Lambata. We would be backpackers for the next 3 or 4 days!

We were joined on our hour long ferry ride by a crazy, larger than life Italian guy called Paulo, the only other foreigner on the ferry and someone who would become our travel companion for the next few days.

Lambata…

After spending a night at the port town all 3 of us joined the locals on the 4 hour jeep ride to Lamalera, the village the whalers call home.

We found a hostel and prepared for a couple of days stay, we were all excited about the chance of seeing the whale hunt up close and personal even though our chances were slim due to the low numbers of whales taken each year, the current count for this year was 22 at the time of writing.

Lamalera is situated at the edge of a deep shelf in the ocean creating an up-welling of cold water bringing plankton, fish and other nutrients which in turn attracts the larger sea creatures such as mantas, sharks, dolphins, large game fish and of course whales, all hunted for their meat by the local fisherman.

The whalers had avoided the international ban on commercial whaling due to the small numbers taken each year and the tradition methods still employed in the process. Even though outboard motors had replaced the traditional sail boats, making fishing slightly safer, it’s still a very risky business indeed.
We’d been shown a movie at the hostel, made by one of the numerous film crews that had visited the village over the years to making documentaries about the fisherman’s way of life.

Metal tipped wooden spears are the order of the day with the harpooners diving from the front of the wooden boats using their body weight to penetrated the thick outer blubbery layer and drive the spear deep into the animal. Knives are then used to repeatedly stab their prey to finish it off.

The fisherman were usually found hanging around the beach, smoking local clove cigarettes, mending nets or making boat repairs, waiting for the shout of ‘Baleo!’ (whale) to ring out across the village when a whale is spotted by one of the lookouts on it’s traditional migration path to and from Antarctica.

Wandering around the village people seemed very friendly and there was evidence of the hunt with whale bones scattered throughout the village, some used as decoration for houses, and the almost black whale meat drying on racks outside of peoples homes.

In our time there we hadn’t managed to see any whale hunting but had wandered across a small pod of 7 dolphins being cut up on the beach will heading down for our daily swim. Even the kids of the fisherman were getting involved, cleaning intestines and washing big chunks of meat in the sea.
Once the animals had been chopped up, the pieces are then shared among all the families to ensure that every one in the community benefits from the catch, with the choice pieces going to the whalers and their families.

The only negative side to the experience was the attitude of the whalers and the hostel owners to the tourists. Even though there was never more than 5 tourists, hardly a tourist trap, there seemed to be a ‘ lets squeeze as much cash out of the them as possible’ attitude with an unfriendliness, arrogance and form of derision that I hadn‘t seen elsewhere during all my time in Indonesia.
I could only think that a combination of isolation, ignorance about the fact that the West is not paved in gold and irresponsible film crews throwing around silly amounts of money have created inflated prices and the attitude that all foreigners are rich and there to be fleeced at every opportunity.
It really tainted the experience and made all of us want to leave sooner than we might have.
A real shame because the other people in the village had been so friendly.

When I meet this attitude, which happens very rarely I might add, I sometimes wish I could throw these people into my world, the rat race of London, and see how they fair.

Despite this the 3 of us had a real laugh, re-counting stories from home and whiling away the evenings drink locally made Arak and eating fresh fish.

We made the journey back to the port where we met up with Jamie. He’d managed to get his bike on another boat that sat lower in the water allowing it to be load without much drama.
I said goodbye to Paulo and Jamie and headed back to the mainland with Elvis who planned on loading his bike on a boat and head back to the island to catch the ferry to Timor with the lads.

Back on the mainland I said my goodbyes to Elvis, he’d become a good friend, we would surely stay in touch and meet up again in the future.

I headed back to Wodong and into the middle of mass celebrations…

The day after I arrived there where 26 weddings scheduled to happening alone a 3 mile stretch of road. ‘Why all the same day?’ I asked myself. At home people strive to avoid clashes with other friends weddings.
The guy at the bungalows, who’s brother was one of the grooms, enlightened me to the situation. A priest was coming from Ende, 4 hours drive away, to do the officiating and he would only come if there was at least 20 couples getting married. The priest in the closer administrative capital of Maumere had refused to marry the couples because they had all had children out of wedlock. A bit of a faux par in very Catholic and conservative Flores.

Me and some of the other travellers had been invited to the after wedding party which involved lots of dancing, singing and copious amounts of Arak, a strong local spirit. Not too different from an English wedding then.
When we turned up the older generation, which I guess I am part of these days, were all smashed on Arak and giving full power renditions of their favourite Indonesian songs, very funny. As the night wore on the old guard staggered off to their beds to be replaced by the young teens and pumping dance music.

Chatting to the guy from the bungalow, he’d told me that it was tradition for the males side of the family to give a horse as a present to the brides family which he’d delivered earlier in the day and was now tied to a stake outside the celebration tent and the brides family to gave a pig, also present at the proceedings, and some vegetables. I pictured in my head a horse tied up outside a church in the English country side and had a chuckle to myself.

The family running Wodong Cottages had been absolutely lovely, welcoming me into the family like an old friend rather than a paying customer. It was one of the best places I’d stayed in Indonesia.

It was now time to make the ride back to Ende where I’d leave the bike and get a short flight to Kupang in West Timor where I was meeting up with Helen and heading to Justin‘s, Helen’s English mate from her days in Jakarta, and Sarah’s engagement party in the small village where Sarah grew up, 2 hours out of the capital.

West Timor..

Timor is also a Christian island but differs from Flores in the fact the majority of the population are protestant.
Making my way to the hotel and staring out the window of the taxi I noticed that Timor was much drier, more Mediterranean in it’s flora than the lush, green Flores.

It was great to see Helen again, it would be great to spend the next 2 weeks together. We hadn’t seen each other for almost 2 months. After Justin’s engagement party we both planned to travel back to Flores and spend 10 days taking a look around the island.

The day after being introduced to Justin and Sarah over beers, we headed off to her village near Soe.

We turned up in the village to lots of welcomes and handshakes as the woman were busying themselves preparing the pig and 10 chickens that Justin had purchased for the feast. It was a little difficult to communicate at first but I’ve learnt that hand gestures and miming tend to go a long way and as everyone started to relax there where smiles and laughter all round.

Sarah’s family are originally from Rote, an island West of Timor, and in accordance to tradition Justin was required to where the traditional dress for a wedding. I can only describe it as a skirt with a sash and a funky wicker Stetson with a pole on top and a bell on the end. I really had to force myself not to burst out laughing upon first seeing him, it took me 5 minutes before I could look him in the eye.

At one point we had a blessing of the engagement by a local priest and an exchange of rings, it was all very serious and I could see that religion forms a great basis of peoples lives.

There where also speeches, one of the uncles got up and asked about Justin’s intentions which led him into an impromptu speech. To be fair to the lad he did well, especially being put on the spot when he least expected it.

There was talk about when the wedding was going to happen and what he did for a living, the sort of discussions that happen in every country around the world.
What did surprise me was how openly money was discussed, something that would be a real no-no in Western culture. Sarah’s uncle had put her through school so asked for a payment in-return for blessing the union.
I must admit that in the past I’d been a little cynical about the dowry payments that are so common across developing countries around the world. After this experience my opinion has changed.

The family unit, which is more widespread than what we would call the direct family in England, take care of each other. Whether financially, looking after children while the parents work or just mucking in when there’s a problem to be solved.
The uncle certainly didn’t need the money, I’d seen his big car and house earlier that day, it was just a small token payment, a cultural tradition should we say, something that keeps the family bond and ensures the families survival and prosperity for the future.
I really started to appreciate the need for it in a country without welfare or state education.
Simply put, You look after your own.

Once the formalities had finished and the food had been eaten, Justin brought out a 5 litre drum of Arak which seemed to go down well and much merriment was had.

Justin was staying the night and me and Helen were taking our hired car back to the hotel in Kupang.

Upon leaving some of the close relatives came up to us and it seemed like they were going in for a kiss on the lips, they stopped short and rubbed noses, apparently a traditional Rote greeting for close family.
I’d only heard about this greeting in Inuit culture and seen it in the Maori’s of New Zealand on a visit a few years ago but I’d hadn’t seen it in any other part of Indonesia.
We both felt privileged and humbled to be accepted in such a way.

Helen and myself hoped on a plane and headed back to he bike in Ende.

Time to explore the beautiful Flores at closer quarters….

Trails and Tribulations

2010-10-30T03:06:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a while since my last blog update, so I’ll get you up to speed with what’s been happening in my world.

I’m currently in Penang having just received a new engine from BMW.
It’s taken 6 weeks for BMW Germany to say yes to a new engine under warranty. After providing service history, photos of the broken engine parts and test results the go ahead was finally given and 10 days later a brand new shinny engine, if only for a short time which I’ll talk about later, arrived at the BMW Penang offices in Georgetown.
The offending item had been a broken piston. The ribs that sit around the piston holding in the piston rings had broken off explaining why engine oil had been seeping into the combustion chamber and burning 1 litre every 150k’s.

I would like to give a big thanks to BMW Malaysia who have been fantastic during all of my problems and have bent over backwards to help me in my time of need. I’d like to give a special mention to their head mechanic Mikah, he’s been an absolute star, really going out of his way to help me out.

It’s actually been a bit of an eventful 7 weeks, during which time I caught Dengue Fever and suffered an ear infection that involved a doctor puncturing my eardrum to drain it. It’s left me with a predisposition of subsequent bouts of Dengue and annoying Tinnitus which hopefully will fade over time……..

Memo turned up a week before I was due to leave, he was shipping his bike back to Turkey and heading home. He’d bought me a bottle of Taliskar from duty free on his way back from Sumatra so we immediately set about demolishing the whiskey. It was the end of his trip but we’d surely see each other again, the list of people to visit on the way home was now building.

I’d roped in Bram for a ride over to the east coast., we’d become good friends during my time in Penang. Bram would join me for half the trip before heading home and I’d continue on to the East coast to run the engine in before returning back to Penang and shipping the bike back to Indonesia. One thing I’ve learned is things don’t always go to plan.

We headed out to the hills…..

Bram had pushed slightly ahead.
I was really enjoying being back on the bike and winding my way through the fast twisties of the Malaysian hills.

About 100km’s out of Penang I ran wide on a corner and hit some gravel on the side of the road traveling at about 100km/hr. The bike went down and ended up going backwards down a concrete drainage ditch with me still attached, we eventually came to a stop facing the direction I had come from…

Initially I was amazing that I’d got away unscathed. Looking down I noticed the third finger on my right hand was bent in the middle at a 45 degree angle, instinctively I grabbed the finger and snapped it back into place. Only a dislocation but a pretty painful one at that.
There was no way of pushing the bike out of the ditch, the only way out was to ride up the storm drain and jump the bike up a small wall at the end to get it back out and on to the roadside.
I’d made a genuine riding mistake and it had been a lesson well learnt…

Crash Site

Apart from the dislocation and a scraped on my knee I’d got away lightly and so had the beamer. The only damage being a grated off pillion foot peg, a scrap down the engine block, a bend hand guard and I’d torn off one of the panniers.
Bram arrived and found me attempting to beat the pannier back into shape with my trusty hammer, the single most useful tool I’d brought on the trip. I decided it wasn’t a good idea to continue so we headed back to Penang after I’d strapped the pannier back on, it would mean another visit to the welders before I headed back to Indonesia.

Bram kindly offered to let me stay at his house with the family for a few days while I recovered. After 3 days the swelling on my hand had gone down enough to allow me to ride the bike to the mechanics to make sure there was nothing more serious than a few scrapes.

5 days later I was heading off to ship the bike back to Indonesia…

I’d like to say a big thanks to Bram, Emily, James and Arthur for looking after me and making me feel really welcome in your home. I really enjoyed my time with you guys.

Bram and Neil on Neil's leaving do

Left to right: Bram, Arthur, Harry Potter, James and Emily

Sumatra part 2

I’d already planned on visiting Helen for a couple of weeks on my way back through Medan, a side trip was needed….

I stuck Helen on the back of the bike and we headed off to Brastagi for the weekend. It was my second time there but Helen had never seen the place and after speaking to Memo I was eager to climb Sibayak, a still active volcano.

Arriving after a very wet journey we checked into a hotel and settled in for the night.
The great thing about Sibayak is that you can ride the bike ¾ of the way up to an old disused spar and then walk for 40 minutes to get to the crater, perfect for the lazy hiker.

Sibayak crater is a lunar landscape of strewn boulders and gushing sulphur plumbs giving it an other worldly feel. It was the first time I’d peered into an active volcano evoking feelings of the immense power of nature.

Gungung Sibayak

It was time for me to head South, I had a pressing deadline. The plan was to go home for a mates wedding and see the family for 3 weeks, I needed to make a flight from Bali on the 13th and also give myself enough time to find a safe place to store the bike while away.

After dropping Helen off in Medan and saying our farewells I started the long haul South towards java. It would be 12 hour riding days, not my preferred way of travel but it had to be done.

5 days,2000k’s, 4 offers of daughters from their parents and a dead dog later, leaving me on the hat-trick after my first victim in Kyrgyzstan, I reached the bottom of Sumatra. On the way down I spent a day at Bukittinggi and took a walk up into the jungle to see the fabled Raflesia, the largest flower in the world.

Raflesia gets it’s name from Raffles of the famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore, purported to have re-discovered the flower on a trip to the jungles of Sumatra.
Famed for it’s stench of rotting meat Raflesia is in fact a fungus, it emits the unpleasant smell to attract flies for pollination purposes. Measuring up to a metre across it flowers very infrequently, quite often once every year, with blooms lasting for up to a week. I was lucky enough to catch one in full blossom.

Raflesia

Southern Sumatra

After a short stay in Lampung I took the ferry to Java to continue my journey South and East……

Java...

Being home to the capital Jakarta, the financial powerhouse of Indonesia and half the countries population it’s immediately obvious that Java is more modern and developed than Sumatra. The people of Java are very warm, jovial and welcoming, more so than their brothers across the water in Sumatra, whom at times, maybe due to the harsh nature of life in the region, can sometimes seem stern and a bit removed.

Within 10 minutes of being off the ferry I was in one of the famed Javanese traffic jams…..

Traffic is a real problem in Java, the cities being almost constantly gridlocked. Jakarta has legendary status as the most traffic chocked city in the world and with the Indonesian population growing at 1.5% a year the problem is only going to get worse in the future. My friends in Medan had advised me to travel through western Java in the middle of the night. Generally i don’t like traveling at night so I decided to stick to daylight hours and just bite the bullet for the next few days. The plan was to take the Southern route across the volcanic chain, the best scenery in Java, skirt the major cities of Jakarta and Jogjakarta leaving the unavoidable Bandung as the major traffic hot-spot on my journey East…

After 3 days I arrived at Borobudur in East Central Java, home to one of the most important archaeologically sites in Indonesia. After getting lost in the traffic, Bandung hadn’t been that bad in the end. As happens so many times in countries round the world, a friendly local appeared with precision timing and guided me through the city, sending me on way on the right road heading East.
I often ask myself would this happen at home. We in Europe can learn a lot from other, less privileged countries about how to treat our fellow man. It inspires me to become a better person and to treat travelers new to UK with the same friendliness and helpfulness I’ve been shown on my journey. It’s very humbling indeed.

The Borneo Bike Club

Road to Borobudur

Borobudur

Surrounded by lush green rice fields and the mighty hulk of Gugung Merapi, Borobudur has a pleasant temperate climate, a nice place to spend a couple of days. The star attraction is of course the large Buddhist monument that gives the area it’s name. Being a bit of anomaly in Indonesia, Buddhism is largely confined to the modern day Chinese immigrant community who’s temples and monuments have their own unique look and feel; Borobudur has the appearance of the great temples of Thailand and Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Little is known about the history but it’s believed to be built by the Sailendra dynasty in AD750 and was then abandoned after the decline of Buddhism and the seat of power shifted to Eastern Java.
The monument was then restored in 1815 under the order of Stamford Raffles during his period as governor of Java. Tons of volcanic ash was cleared from a previous eruption of Merapi to reveal a monument of intricate carvings. After surviving a terrorist bomb attack in 1985 Borobudur was given World Heritage Status in 1991.

Borobudur, situated on the top of hill, is built on a square base of 118m by 118m with 6 tiers gradually reducing in size creating a series of walkways from which the worshiper gradually makes his way towards the top. The true beauty of the monument comes from the relief’s carved into the walkway walls, charting a journey from hell at the base leading through various stages of enlightenment finally reaching nirvana at the top when the 5km walk has been completed.

Borobudur

Another long days ride took me to the rim of mount Bromo just as nightfall was approaching. I cut my way down through the sand of the caldera and up the other side to find a room in a small hotel a couple of km’s from the lip. It would be another early start to reach a viewpoint on an adjacent mountain for sunrise.

Road to Bromo

The king of fried rice, Mutton Nasi Goreng

Bromo

Making the journey back across the floor of the volcano I reached the viewpoint just before sunrise. On reaching the mountain summit I discovered 500 other tourists desperately trying to elbow a space to take a photo of the sunrise, it was more tourists on one small piece of land than I’d seen in the whole of my time in Indonesia.
I took a few photos of the pantomime going on in front of me and sat down to chat to a guy from Jakarta for half an hour until the the hordes had jumped back into their 4 wheel drives and headed off into the crater. Within 15 minutes of sunrise I was left to enjoy the amazing view with a dozen other people for company.

Spotting the sunrise over the tourist throng

While not the largest volcano in Indonesia, Bromo has to be the candidate for the most beautiful, so picture perfect it almost takes your breath away. Made up of 3 smaller volcanoes, the still active one being Bromo, surrounded by the caldera of a large volcano with the smoking gun of Gunung Semeru in the distance. It casts a surreal picture perfect view that only nature could produce, probably the single most jaw-dropping view I’ve seen in the whole of my time in Indonesia.

Stunning Bromo

Spending a morning razing round in the sea of sand and visiting a lovely little village over the rim at the far side of the caldera had been nice but it was time to head for Bali and my flight back to the UK.

In the sea of sand and surrounding villages

Road to Bali

Bali...

Bali as seen from Java

I took the ferry and made the 3 hour journey down Bali’s Southern coast and hit Kuta. Famed as the party area of Bali, Kuta can be described as the Australian version of Magaluf, pretty grim but good for a laugh if you need to let off a bit of steam. I rolled into the hostel and met up with Elvis (Norwegian biker) and hit the town for a night out.

After one night I relocated to Jimbaran, South of the airport, a good place to leave the bike.
Two days later I was on a flight back to the UK…..

With this being a travel blog, I don’t really want to write about my 3 week visit home, suffice to say I’d like to congratulate Jim and Eve on their marriage, it was a fantastic day.
Thanks to Andy and Emma for making sure I wasn’t sleeping on the streets during my time in London.
It was also good to see my family, I really enjoyed the BBQ’s and Northern banter, I miss that.

Also, congratulations to my cousin Kara on her engagement, I look forward to the wedding next year.

Once I’d eaten and drunk all the Sunday roasts, cheese and red wine I could possible take, it was time to get back on the flight with a few spare parts, a bike frame for my friends in Medan, a new passport and visa.
It was time to head back to Indonesia and of course the beamer…..

Rumble in the Jungle

2010-05-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

Indonesia….

Sumatra…

Picking up the bikes from the port we then headed off to Medan for a nights stop over before carrying on to our next destination Bukit Lewang and a visit with our hairy orange cousins…

Indonesia is a world away from modern Malaysia. Medan, at first, felt like driving in India but once the city had faded behind us so did the traffic. It was nice to be on the open road once again….

Indonesia is an anomaly when it comes to countries. Ranging across 18000 islands, 6000 of which are thought to be inhabited, it’s the largest archipelago in the world. With so many islands, 700 languages and so many different cultures grown over years of isolation, Indonesia constitutes a country with tremendous diversity in both wealth and culture. Indonesia has a population of around 240 million of which 130 million live in it’s most populated island Java, making it the 4th most populated country in the world.

First brought together by the Dutch in attempt to control the spice trade, the country finally formed itself as an independent self governed nation only as late as 1947, in the aftermath of the Japanese invasion during World War II which subsequently gave the nation the impetus to mount a revolt against Dutch rule.

Bukit Lewang

Is situated on a lovely river in the mountains bordering the lush jungle of the Gunung Leuser National Park.

Like many places in northern Sumatra, Bukit Lewang has seen it’s fair share of natural disasters. In 2003 a flash food tore through the village destroying most of the village and killing 250 people in the process. It’s a stark reminder of the fragility of life in this part of the world.

Bukit Lewang

Orangutans, meaning ‘man of the forest‘, are the main draw for tourists entering the park. After an afternoons rest, we arranged a jungle trek for the next day in the hope of seeing a couple of beasts in the wild.

What amazed me was the sheer numbers of animals in the forest. We managed to see 10 orangutans in the space of a days trek and from very close quarters, the closest being a huge male hanging out in a tree not more than 3 metres away. You could really see the intelligence behind the blinking eyes starring back at you making you wonder who was studying who.

Being solitary creatures, with a territory of roughly 2sqkm’s, they spend most of their time eating or sleeping, only coming together to breed and rear the resulting offspring.
Living for 50 years the orangutans have a varied diet of 50% fruit, 30% young leaves, 15% insects and 5% bats, which they rotate through out the day.
Like humans, each individual has it’s own distinct personality and therefore are prone to being shaped by their upbringing.
A lot of the specimens had been released from the rehabilitation centre set up to integrate orangutans rescued from captivity back into the jungle. The centre provides training for animals that have never lived in the wild and a feeding station to help the tricky transition period back to total independence.

Towards the end of the trek we were all getting a bit tired, clambering all day over the steep and muddy terrain. Sitting down to take a rest we heard the shout of ‘run!’. Turning round there was a fully grown specimen bounding down the track towards, it woke everyone from their tiredness as we all got up and sprinted down the track. It was female that had been released from a particularly cruel owner and had naturally taken a disliking to human beings.

Hanging out

After a few days relaxing by the river we headed to Aceh, via a nights stopover in Brastagi, to the western side of the national park and a very small village called Ketambe.

Brastagi

It was time to say goodbye to Ester and Marcus, it had been great travel with them we would surely meet up again in Indonesia.

Road to Ketambe

Ketambe was also a new experience for me in one of the most unexpected ways…..

Ketambe, a small village on the western side of the Gunung Leuser national park is a much more sleepy place than Bukit Lewang. With fantastic jungle and fully wild orangutans, it’s a truly idyllic place. Home to the Ketambe Research Station, ketambe was once the thriving heart of the national park’s tourism. The village has now largely slipped back into a quiet backwater with the mass of the tourist heading for the rehabilitation centre in Bukit Lewang, moved from Ketambe in attempt to allow the research centre to conduct it’s work in a more natural and peaceful environment.

I settled into my jungle hut run and owned by a very knowledgeable local guide who had spent 7 years working for the centre on animal research.

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Trekking to Hot Springs

After a fantastic days trekking in the jungle I settled down in my hut for a comfortable nights sleep…

At 5.30 in the morning I was suddenly awake with the whole hut shaking violently.
Wondering what was going on, with my first thought being a large animal attacking my hut, it dawned on me that I was in the middle of my first ever earthquake!

The shaking went on for about a minute before it died away with a couple of minor aftershocks as the fault line, situated just off the coast of Western Sumatra, pushed and settled back into place.

Watching the local news the next day, it transpired that the earthquake happened about 100ks off the coast, about 200k’s from me, it had reeked havoc on the island of Simeulue where they’d felt the full force of the 7.8 quake. With a lot of houses flattened it was amazing that the loss of life had only been minor with a couple of people losing there lives in incidents that happen after the earthquake as a result of the clean up.

The quake had only been 3.5 in Ketambe but with the level of shaking I experience it made me contemplate the fear and panic that would have ensued in Simeulue. The destructive power of nature, truly humbling.

Rock the House

The next day I headed to Banda Aceh at the top of Sumatra up a road that cuts right through the centre of Aceh, stopping off overnight in Takengon.

Earthquake Damage on the Road North

Arriving at Banda Aceh I rocked up to the hotel to find a guy had followed me into the car park on his bike. He turned out to be a member of the local bike club and invited me to meet his club members for coffee in the evening. With Aceh being the most Muslim state in Sumatra I didn‘t expect beer.
A pleasant evening was had swapping bike tales with the guys and ended with them offering help any time I have difficulties during my time in the region.

Coffee with the Aceh Bikers Club

Aceh is full of the most amazing, warm and friendly people. Hitting the news for all the wrong reasons, the long suffering people of Aceh have endured civil war, natural disasters, legalization of Sharia Law in 2009 and most recently, Al Qaeda training camps in the the mountains of North Central Aceh.

Banda was hit hard by the biggest single natural disaster that mankind has ever know, the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The wave measuring up to 15 metres high in places, tore through the coast line traveling up to 7Km’s inland flattening the city and leaving only a few buildings left standing. The wave, caused by the 9 plus earthquake, was so powerful that it reeked havoc across the whole of the Indian Ocean, hitting the coast as far away as India. The death toll in Sumatra came in at 170’000 with a further half a million left homeless.

The central Mosque, one of the only buildings left standing after the Tsunami

Now completely rebuilt it’s hard to imagine what Banda must have been like on that fateful day. The most bizarre reminder is a generator ship swept 4k’s inland and plonked down in the middle of town.

Boating for Land-lubbers

It’s amazing that Acehanese are such a happy and lively people, always laughing and joking. Maybe its because, not despite all that’s happened in recent years………

A quick hop on the ferry lead me to the island of Pulea Weh, the most northerly point of Indonesia….

Pulling into Lumba Lumba dive centre I spied Duncan’s (British biker previously met in Lahore and KL) KTM sitting out the front. Duncan and Roel, a Dutch guy on an Africa Twin, had been spending a couple of months there doing their Dive Master Course.
After an unsuccessful hunt for accommodation I pitched my tent with the other guys on the top of the septic tank out the back.

The beach was absolutely fantastic, with world class snorkeling straight off the beach in very shallow water. Amazing coral and a huge array of colourful fish including turtles, it was certainly the best snorkeling I’d ever done.

Pulau Weh the Most Northernly Point of Indonesia

After a few days relaxing, eating and drinking with a great bunch of people it was time to head off South back towards Medan…

The bike was starting to act up again and was using oil at a real rate and running a bit of temperature, the old girl was sick once again.

Making it back into Medan I called the mechanic in Penang who put me in touch with a BMW enthusiast in Medan called Jusili, owner of a BMW 1150GS.

Over the coming week the guys really looked after me, helping me get parts to fix the charge system with the parts being sent over from Penang to replace the stator, ignition coil and regulator which had been damaged by the stator. The stator had been re-wound in KL and when we opened the bike we found that it had been a real bodge job, I was not surprised it had gone again. The guys had charged me nothing and wouldn’t ever let me pay for lunch despite my constant attempts. Amazing bunch of people.

My time in town was also made more pleasant by a couple of guys I met, JP and Andrew. They gave me a tour of the Medan nightlife and took me for a round of golf the next day. Andrew being the General Manager of the fantastic Royal Sumatra Golf Club.

I then headed off again, to Lake Toba…

Road to Toba

Lake Toba…

Lake Toba, the largest lake in SE Asia, is formed in the base of massive volcano, 200k’s south west of Medan. Coming over the rim of the caldera was a truly breathtaking sight with magnificent views of the lake as I wound my way down the hairpins to the edge of the lake. My destination was Samosir, an island in the middle of the lake connected to the mainland by a 10 metre bridge.

I rocked up to Tuk Tuk, a peninsular on the Eastern side of the island.

Samosir is home to the Batak people. Largely christian, the Bataks are famed for partying and their love of Tuak, a strong wine made from palm sugar that’s a cross between cider and fruit juice.

Samosir

It was certainly a great place to relax for a few days but I would have to make the trip back to Medan. The bike overheating issue seemed to have been solved but she was now blowing white smoke and burning oil at the rate of 1 litre every 150k’s. The most likely fault being valve seals or piston rings.

Back in Medan.

Me and the guys did some tests on the bike and we all agreed it was probably the valves. I would have to ship the bike back to Penang in Malaysia and get the bike fixed and then try again.

During my week hanging around waiting for the bike to be shipped I met a English teacher called Helen, working in Medan. She was certainly a free spirited like minded person and I would definitely pop in and see her on the way back from Malaysia.

With the bike already on route, I said goodbye to Helen and took a bus to Belawan to catch the passenger ferry. I was heading back to Penang, one of the many second homes I was beginning to accumulate in SE Asia.

Sumatra has really energised me for the travel again, an amazing place with great people, I can’t wait to come back and continue my journey…….

The troublesome wife…

SE Asia has certainly been a trying time for my relationship with the old girl.
She’s broken down 3 times, had a new fuel pump, stator, regulator, spark plugs, ignition coil and has been suffering from various oil leaks. It’s certainly been a challenging time but I’ve managed to muddle through and still keep moving forward. I’ve learnt a lot on this trip so far, one of the chief lessons has been that you can cope with just about anything if you put your mind to it. It’s living proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Back in Penang my first stop was the BMW workshop to arrange to get the bike fixed. After a few tests at BMW they decided the right thing to do was to replace the engine completely, done under warranty for free! Amazing luck and this would hopefully solve all the problems I’ve having over the last 4 months. It would take 2 weeks for the engine to come from Germany and then I would be back on the road. Fantastic news, I am a very happy biker indeed……..

Missing in Action

2010-03-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

Most of my friends are well aware of my on-going bike issues in SE Asia. To not clutter up this blog with stories of breakdowns and repairs I’ll be following this with an update dedicated to my misbehaving Beamer.

Malaysia - 1st Act.…

Crossing the border at Sadao I headed down the A-road running next to the highway to Georgetown on Penang island and stopped at the Banana Hostel.

Peninsular Malaysia’s 20 million population is made up of Malays, Chinese, Indians and the indigenous Orang Asli, meaning Original People. While the muslim faith is the predominate force the society is also made up of Christians, Buddhists, Taosists and Hindu’s. Modern day Malaysians live in a very tolerant multi-cultural society, a far cry from the 1969 interracial riots between the Malays and Chinese which caused hundreds of deaths particularly around Kuala Lumper.

First impressions of Malaysia are of really friendly and hospitable people and excellent roads on par with any European country.

Penang…

Georgetown was the first place in Malaysia to be colonised by the British. Now a bustling city the place is a cross roads for SE Asian culture, seen in the varied cuisine of china, India and the spices of Thailand.

Time to head South…….

Cameron Highlands…

It was nice to get the cool air of the mountains at 1500 metres the highlands are a nice change from the heat of lowland Malaysia.

On arrival I met a great bunch of people that would become the drinking crowd for the next 4 or 5 days while relaxing in the cool air of the mountains.

The Cameron Highlands is a photographers dream, with rolling hills covered in tea plantations, strawberry farms and the beautiful mossy forest, a 65 million year old water logged forest covered in vivid green moss.

Kuala Lumper…..

The Malaysians embrace all things modern, from magnificent Petronas Towers, formerly the tallest man made structure on earth, to the telecoms tower the 4th largest in the world. KL is awash with steel and glass.

A few days later after a visit to Thaipusam, an Indian festival held at the Batu Caves, I decided to head off to Tasik Chini via Tama Negara National Park.

After a great 4 days I arrived at the isolated lake of Tasik Chini.

Tasik Chini….

Tasik Chini is a lovely lake just inland from the East coast surrounded by lush jungle with a small village and Ranjan Jones’s Guesthouse on it’s shores. It was a great place to spend a week and just relax and catch up on some blogging, with very few tourists there was little destractions.

Ranjan a 65 year old Indian guy, runs day treks into the jungle and is a font of all knowledge about the plants and animals living there.

Rajan spoke of his concerns about the damaged caused by palm oil plantations, logging and the toothless environmental groups incapable of fighting a government backed large-scale de-forestation initiative.

Palm oil is the major product driving the Malaysian economy, so much so that it recently bought 2 submarines from France, paid for with palm oil.
The central part of the country is one huge plantation which has decimated the local flora and forna due to the loss of habitat.
As well as sucking the nutrients from the ground, palm oil requires well drained soil, the opposite of the heavily waterlogged forest, leaving large areas incapable of supporting a complex forest environment.
Malaysia seems to be marching down the palm oil route with blinkered eyes ignoring what this could spell for the country in the long term.

Back to KL…….

KL….

While hanging around the guesthouse I spotted a poster on the wall looking for foreigners to act as extras in a TV series being filmed half an hour outside of KL. Having time, I thought ‘what the hell’, it would be a new experience and might be a bit of laugh.

Setting the scene…..

The 8 part mini series called Akina Balu, centres around a group of British prisoners in a Japanese prison of war camp in Malaysia during World War II.
The days filming centred around the forced labour scenes that would be cut and added to several of the episodes during editing. Apart from the 4 British actors, brought out from the UK, all the other actors consisted of locals playing the camp guards and Russian and European backpackers playing the camp inmates.

Having only one camera for filming each scene, the programme had to be shot from several angles causing some hilarious continuity faux pas with extras standing in different positions for each shot, holding pick axes from one angle and shovels from another. Think of a B-move version of Chuck Norris’s Missing in Action films and you begin to get the picture.

As the only English extra I was asked to do a voice over for a torture scene, my voice would be immortalised in screams of ’Katong, Katong!’. Hilarious.

Towards the end of the days filming I found out that my acting debut had been scripted to end in a blaze of glory.
Buoyed by the arrival of American planes overhead I was gunned down making a break for freedom. With an exploding squib strapped to my back and remote control button in my hand it had been a really fun scene to do.

It was now time to head down to see Nerissa a friend I‘d previously worked with in London, now living in Singapore. Due to more bike troubles it would have to be by bus…..

Singapore…

I’d heard stories of the strict nature of the Singaporean government with fines for littering, Jay-walking and the banning of chewing gum.
I have to admit that I really liked Singapore, it was a great break from the travel. It’s just like any European city but cleaner, with one of the lowest crime rates in the world. It’s probably the first place I visited on the trip that I would actually consider living and working.

It had been great to spend 2 weeks visiting friends but it was time to head back to Malaysia and then on towards Indonesia.
I’d like to say a big thanks to Nerissa and Nez for putting me up, introducing me to all their friends, the delights of chilli crab and generally making sure I had a great time during my stay. If you ever get over to London my door is always open.

Malaysia - 2nd Act….

While in KL I bumped into Elvis, a fellow biker from Norway. He’d been travelling with a few other bikers I’d met on my travels, Carlos in Ko Phangan, Morgan and George in Lahore and Duncan in Lahore and KL. It really is a small world.
Elvis headed off to Penang while I hung around for a couple of more days for the bike to be ready.

Penang….

On my first day back I rode round the island to visit a couple of guys. Bram and Neil had asked me to pick up some throttle rockers for them in Singapore. I’d like to say thanks to you both for helping me out when I was having issues with the bike and taking me for a few beers when I was most in need. Keep riding and good luck with wherever you guys end up settling.

A big group of overland bikers where starting to amassing in Penang. As well as Elvis on a KTM there was Nicole a lovely Swiss girl on a KTM Adventure and a Ester and Marcus a nice couple from Switzerland on XT 660’s.

Sadly due to a broken bike Elvis would have to join us in a couple of weeks and Nicole was heading for the classic SE Asian loop of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
The 3 remaining bikers booked our passage to Medan and did all the necessary paper work to load the bikes onto a fruit boat. We would be joining the bikes in a couple of days and starting a new chapter in the wild and mystical Sumatra…..

Next stop Indonesia….

Bangkok Breakdown

2010-03-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

Thailand………

Arriving in Thailand from Bangladesh is a culture shock in itself, jolting me back to a world of modernity. Bangkok is a gleaming modern metropolis with every convenience a European city has to offer, certainly a change from the rawness of Bangladesh.

Before I could re-discover the city I’d previously visited 8 years ago, the priority was to spring the bike from her imprisonment in the customs compound. After messing around for 5 hours it became blatantly clear that the person responsible for providing me with a Thai Carnet had gone home for the evening so it was off to find a hotel for the night, I would have to return the following morning and continue the battle with Thai Customs frustrating bureaucracy.

4 more hours of shuffling paper, fee payments and furious stamping led me to the hanger to pick up the bike and strip away the packaging. I was finally re-united with the old girl and off we sped on what I though would be a short 40k hop to the centre of Bangkok…..

After about 15k’s the bike cut out on me on the motorway and I cruised to a stop at the side of the road, thus compounding the problem I already had with the major oil leak from Bangladesh.

The problem must be the fuel getting to engine, I still had 4 litres of reserve left in the tank.

First priority was to get off the motorway, so I locked up the bike and flagged down a taxi. I’d previously been given a number for a BMW mechanic in Bangkok by an American guy living in Kathmandu, it’s always good to go with a recommendation.

The taxi driver took the directions over the phone, when we pulled up outside the mechanic was already waiting with a truck to go and retrieve the bike.
We set off hoping the bike hadn’t been towed by the police….

Thankfully she was still there and within 40 minutes we were back at the shop and the guys could start work…..

I finally arrived at the hotel I’d booked, 2 days after arriving in Thailand, it had certainly been an interesting and challenging 5 days…..

I’d decided from the off I was going to rest up in Bangkok and spend some time eating the king of cuisines, having a few drinks and generally relaxing by the roof top pool. I would maybe take a quick look down Kao San Road, the backpacker ghetto in the North of the city, just round the corner from the mechanics workshop.

Bangkok

A week later I picked up the bike.
I’d also, bought a new front tyre, had the oil leak fixed, changed the break fluid and had a general service. The culprit of the breakdown had been a bust fuel pump, now replaced.

It was time to head South to meet up with Ollie and Jenny on Kao Samui for our Christmas get together, it would be a 2 day ride….

After stopping off half way down at Cha Am, an nice little seaside town known for it’s seafood, I caught the last ferry from the mainland and arrived at Buda Beach on Ko Samui and a warm welcome from Ol and Jenny. I hadn’t seen them for 3 months, the last time being Islamabad in Pakistan.

After 3 days of relaxation, golf and watching England achieve an unlikely drawn against South Africa in the cricket, I was happy to be heading off to Ko Phangan and backpacker land. While pleasant, I found Ko Samui too built up for me, it was now the domain of big hotels and the 2 week package holiday crowd.

O and J would make the 30 minute crossing by speedboat where as I would have to head back to the mainland and then catch another ferry out to the island.

Ko Phangan, time to really relax……

Arriving on the Islands

The 3 of others spend at lovely slightly drunken, in my and Ollies case, day at an Italian restaurant,drink bottomless jugs of red wine and gorging ourselves on a tradition Italian Christmas meal.
It was only a matter of a few days before the English and Australian contingent would be turning up……

Christmas Day

Ko Phangan was first colonised by the Chinese to grow palms and supply the south with much needed coconuts, so important in Thai cuisine. Prior to this the island was the domain of pirates. As if to emphasise the point Haad Salad, meaning pirates beach, was located just to the South of where we were staying.

Ko Phangan

We spent the following 3 weeks hanging out on the beach, drinking and eating with a big night out in Haad Yai for new years eve, where we all became victims of the infamous Thai Whiskey buckets.

Recipe:

Take one half bottle of Sam Song, a can of coke and a red bull. Stick them in a bucket with ice and add several straws.

Paul and me had insist, on the night, that there was little alcohol in the buckets, something we rescinded the next day as our heads pounded in the midday sun. A very funny evening but whiskey buckets were now off the agenda for everyone.

New Year Frivolities

It was a relaxing time and certainly something I’d needed after being on the road since Kathmandu.
It was time to move on as people filtered off to catch their planes home. I was now itching to get back on the bike and pick up with the traveling again.

I would just like to say a big thanks to Jules, Liza, Nige, Paul and Jen for making the effort to come out to visit the 3 of us. It was lovely to see some familiar faces, you guys certainly made my time on the island memorable.

Good Times

With my visa running out, I took the ferry to the mainland and headed South towards the border. I would be a day over my visa it would cost me a fine of 500 Bhat (£10) not such a big deal.

While going through customs the officer pointed out that I was 9 days over my carnet, I hadn’t realised that there was a month time limited for the bike. Fortunately it was only a 100 Bhat a day fine. Unfortunately, I only had 600 bhat on me, I played the stupid tourist card (very useful in times of problems). The customs officer was great, he only took 500Bhat off me for my overstay period and waved me on my way.

Malaysia here i come…….

Rickshaw Roadblock

2010-01-27T02:06:00.000-08:00

Bangladesh….

Crossing into Bangladesh at Tamabil in the North East of the country was a slow and time consuming affair due to the fact that we had to wait around for the guy in charge of Carnie de Passage to return from prayer. After 3 and a half hours we were back on the road, heading straight to Dhaka as the roads were largely empty and covered in perfect tarmac.

Road to Dhaka

With 150 million people Bangladesh is the forth most densely populate country in the world, with over 1000 people per sq km it only lies behind the tiny states of Monaco, Singapore and Malta.

Bangladesh has had a troubled past.

After a bloody war, Bangladesh separated from West Pakistan in 1971 with the help of the Indian Army, leaving a shattered and broken country with a ruined economy.

When a famine struck in 73-74 it set the war ravaged country back even further. General Ziaur then took over and martial law was declared.
It wasn’t until the formation of the Bangladesh National Party and the appointment of President Zia before the country started to move forward.
The previous gains in the economy started to unravel in the early 90’s, causing mass protests and wide spread strikes resulting in Zia’a wife taking control of the party and become the new Prime Minister in 1991.

The constitution states that at the end of their tenure an independent caretaker government should be appointed to organise an election within 90 days. As nobody could decide on a caretaker government a military government was appointed and after increasingly violent protests emergency rule was declared in 2007.
With the country in suspension the government attempted to stamp out corruption; Bangladesh being rated as one of the worlds most corrupt nations second only to Nigeria.

Despite the poverty levels, the predominately Muslim state has managed to avoid the extremism that has blighted other countries in the region.
Still one of the poorest countries in the world, the economy has been growing at a rate of 6% in recent years due to an emerging textile industry hopefully providing a brighter future.

As we approach Dhaka the traffic started to swell dramatically to the point of complete conjestion, with only 1 way in to the city we had no choice but to tough it out with the buses, cars and large numbers of Tuk Tuks.

It has to be said it’s the worst traffic I’ve ever seen in my life. With the Indian style of driving in full effect, vehicles where diving for the smallest possible gap opening up in front of them.

After 2 hours we finally made it to national stadium area and found a run down hotel with off street parking. At 30 dollars it was a bit of a shock to the wallet but we had little choice after being turned away at several hotels not allowed to take foreigners due to government restrictions.

Dhaka is a crazy city with the most mind blowing traffic. it’s the only place I’ve ever seen a traffic jam consisting entirely of rickshaws.

Dhaka

After several days spent finding out about flying myself and the bike to Thailand we decided it was time to get out of the big city.

Because of limited time, Herbie needing to get across to Mumbai and meet friends and me meeting friends for Christmas in Thailand, we had to make a decision on where to go next. The longest beach in the world at Cox Bazar or the largest mangrove forest in the world at The Sundarbans….
With both of us planning on being on the beach in 2 weeks time, The Sundarbans was the obvious choice.

South West bound it is…..

Taking a ferry across was an experience, with the usual scrum of people crowding around us and the bikes for the 2 hour crossing.

The Padma River is the exit point for all the rivers in NE, NW India and Nepal. In fact so huge it’s not possible to see the bank on the other side. With it’s slow moving nature the channel for the ferry needs to be constantly dredged creating large sand islands in the middle of the river estuary.

River Dredging

The ferry ride and river life

We parked up at Mongla on the edge of the Sundarbans and arranged with a local boat operator to be taken on a day trip into the National Park the following day.

Road to Sundarbans

The Sundarbans……..

The Sundarbans, meaning ‘beautiful forest’, covers an area of 10’000 sq km, half of which is water, rivers and tidal creaks ranging from a few metres to a few kilometers in width. The forest is home to deer, wild boar, otters, monkeys, crocodiles, various snakes, river dolphins, 300 different bird species and of course the animal most people want to see the elusive Royal Bengal Tiger.

With the tigers ability to swim and the impenetrable nature of the forest it is said to have the highest tiger density in the world with an estimated 200 -450 animals living in the wild.
It was once said that The Royal Bengal Tiger in the Sundarbans had developing an usual taste for human flesh giving them the dubious reputation as the most dangerous tigers in the world. More recent studies have shown this to be inaccurate, with a large proportion of the bodies found in the forest being a result of the Hindu ritual of burning bodies and floating them down the sacred Ganga river at Varanasi in India. In fact, the tigers predominately prey on deer, boar and fish, only turning to attacking fishermen in old age when they’ve lost their agility and canine fangs.

We had a really nice day cruising around the rivers and tributaries but had seen
very little bar some deer and crocodiles, to be expected.

In the Sundarbans

Getting back on the bike the next day, i head off back to Dhaka and Herbie to Calcutta in India. It had been the best 5 months travel of my life. I couldn’t have asked for a better travel partner and had also made a really good mate.
Herbie, safe travels on your way back home. I’ll see you Switzerland on my way back to England.

Heading back to Dhaka the floodgates opened on an oil leak I’d been nursing for the last 3 months. I limped back to Dhaka after buying some oil to top up the bike on the way back. It would have to wait until Bangkok to be fixed.

Racking up the miles

I cleaned the bike up as best I could, took it to the air freight company, watched them crate the bike and go through all the paperwork. The bike would be going on the same plane as me heading towards Thailand.

With no real tourist industry Bangladesh is a challenging place to travel.
It was certainly the worst poverty I’d seen on the trip. With unemployment running at very high rate the amount of begging in Dhaka was quite staggering.
Education seems to be a big problem. I’d met so many people, young and old, that had never attended any form of formal education.

Saying that, the people had been very friendly. Good people.

Next stop Bangkok……

Bollywood B Movie

2009-12-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

NE India......

We crossed into West Bengal in India via the small border crossing at Naksalbari and headed East towards Assam.

Being one of the poorest states in India there is obviously a lot of poverty, rife throughout a lot of India. Even with a growing middle class, largely due a successful IT and call centre industry, the existence of the cast system prevents people from bridging the gap between the haves and have not’s. The cast you are born to is denoted by your surname with everyone from the same cast having the same name and level of employment, making it virtually impossible to escape the poverty trap.
The Indian government is currently trying to abolish the cast system but it will take time. It certainly makes you appreciate how lucky you are to come from a country where if you work hard enough you can achieve anything you want.

Geographically, Assam is a flat plain split down it’s length by the huge Brahmapura River, bordered by Bhutan to the North, Meghalaya and Bangladesh to the South and the hill states of Arunuchal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura to the East.

The word Assam when mentioned evokes images of vast tea plantations with fields full of headscarf wearing tea pickers. Less known, is it’s other major cash crop, rice. It’s also home to some of the friendliest and most curious people in India.

Tea Plantation

After a good 300k’s drive we decided to stop, as the dark descended, at a small town called Ranjia, about 60k’s from our planned destination of Tezpur.

Arriving in town, we were lead across the train tracks by a helpful moped rider to a nice place on the edge of town, this was a regular occurrence in India. It really takes the pain out of circling a town trying to find a bed for the night especially in non-tourist towns that rarely appear in the travellers bible, The Lonely Planet.

This was to start a crazy 2 days where we were interviewed twice by national TV and 4 times by national newspapers in 3 different towns.

In Assam, to our surprise, we had taken on celebrity status. Everywhere we stopped we would draw crowds of hundreds, all wanting to take a look at the strange foreigners on even stranger looking bikes.

The usual Crowds

Getting to the hotel we discovered no off street parking. After negotiating with the hotel owner, we were told that we could put the bikes in the hotel.
Backing up the now large crowd, I gunned the throttle and popped up the steps through the hotel doors.

As I parked the bike I heard a crack from behind me. Going out to take a look, Herbie was on the top step with a cracked and broken marble tile from the top step in his hand, oops. His centre stand had hooked under the top tile and ripped it away, breaking his centre stand in the process.
We were both now use to regular visits to the welders, it was something that could be easily and cheaply fixed at a later date.

Mobbed in Ranjia

The morning came with a couple of quick interviews for the national news channel and a newspaper.
While speaking to a local we were told that we were the only foreign tourists ever to visit the town, this explained the massive crowd both in and outside the hotel. I had almost expected people to be waiting outside our hotel room in the morning.

Very funny.

The crowds were something we had certainly got use to but this had surpassed anything we’d experienced previously.

We quickly knocked off the 60k ride to Tezpur.

Upon entering the town we headed for the hotel and parked up. I went in to negotiate the room rate and on coming back out found Herbie being interview for a different news channel. They’d spotted us coming into town and had followed on mopeds. We agreed a full interview in a couple of hours time after we’d had a chance to shower and clean ourselves up. We were starting to become minor celebs in Assam.

Any excuse for a photo opportunity

It was time to head to the hill state of Arunuchal Pradesh and it‘s capital Itanagar, one of our main objectives of NE India. The plan was to do a loop through the hill tribe regions and then head back into Assam before making our way slowly towards Bangladesh.

Due to the fact the state had experienced civil unrest and an on-going dispute with China over border demarkation we required a special permit to visit the region, easily obtained via email from an agent living in Itanagar. In fact it had only been re-opened the previous year so we didn’t expect to see too many tourists during our time there.

Arunuchal Pradesh….

When travelling by bike, there are days travel when you heart simply soars with passion for what you are doing, this was definitely one of those moments….

Passing through the police checkpoint, the empty road led us almost immediately into a beautiful mountainous landscape covered in thick water soaked jungle of more shades of green than it is possible to imagine, simple stunning. I had a feeling that Arunuchal Pradesh was going to be a very special experience and very different to anything we had seen on the trip so far..

Road to Itanagar

A night stop over in Itanagar led to another newspaper interview and a chance meeting with a great guy call Bob who worked for the local council. He invited us round his house for some food and we spent the night drinking beer and recounting stories of our travels.

Bob and his brother

THE ARTICLE

Globetrotters make N-E their new home

From icy Switzerland to the rugged Karakoram highlands of Turkmenistan to tribal Northeast India, their five-month-long arduous journey may seem as daunting a task that many would quiver to embark on. But not for Russell Cleasby, 40, and Herbert Meier, 41, two globetrotters with a common dream, who have made the world their home.
Little wonder that the two, who rode through Arunachal Pradesh last week as part of their global tour, admitted to having taken a fancy to the taste of momos in the Northeast.
“It is a great place with wonderful people and lovely food, specially the momos,” said Meier, a former project manager with a construction company. He hails from Zug, a town in Switzerland.
Meier set out on his tour on August 23 last year and travelled through Slovakia, Austria, Romania and Bulgaria until he met Cleasby, a Briton on a tour on his bike, at Tajikistan in July this year. Soon they became intimate friends and decided to continue their journey together. Cleasby, who hails from Darlington in northeast England, had worked as a software engineer in an IT company but quit his job to follow his dreams.
“We’re crazy guys with a penchant for globetrotting on bikes. We decided to follow our hearts by quitting our lucrative jobs and spending some years travelling on our bikes,” Meier added.
What impressed the duo was the diverse culture of India, its temples, bearded monks and people of different hues residing amicably in the country.
“Our Indian sojourn is special to us. It has been a great experience to travel through the crowded roads in the big cities and along meandering dusty village paths. The variety of Indian food, right from mattar paneer to pao bhaji is awesome. But we specially liked the momos in the Northeast,” Meier said in Itanagar.
The daredevil duo later left for Bangladesh via Guwahati.

We spent the next 2 days travelling via Ziro on a loop through small villages down lovely winding roads to a village on the outskirst of Daporijo, where we had 2 days break from riding, eating the local delicacy Mitton and chatting with a German couple we’d met on the road who were travelling round India in an old jeep.

On the Road

Village life....

BBQ by the River

The local delicacy Mitton is a very strange animal indeed, like a tougher version of beef but much more tasty. Thought to be a cross between domestic cattle and a wild Tibetan buffalo it lives a semi-domesticated life both in the jungle and at the village of it’s owner. The animal forages freely in the jungle and then only returns to it’s owners house to be fed salt before heading back to the jungle. Nobody knows why the Mitton has a taste for eating salt, possibly it helps remove the toxins from it’s body after eating berries and other plants in the jungle in the same way that creatures visit salt licks in the Amazon.

Any new calf is trained to return by being re-strained while it’s mother heads off to feed. The mother then returns at the end of each day to feed the calf milk. After 4 or 5 days of restraint and salt feeding the calf is released with the mother and the cycle continues.

Mitton being Fed Salt by it's Owner

Back to Assam…..

Road to Assam

I woke up the next day with a hole punched in my back tyre, presumably from a sharp stone in the road. The tyre was so run down that it had almost become a racing slick. By a complete stroke of luck I’d found a new rear in Kathmandu and there was a tyre change garage across the road from the hotel. 30 minutes later we were back on the road and heading for the ferry to the South bank of the Brahmaputra River.

The short road to the ferry crossed among other things some very deep sand. On one sandy descent Herbie hit a large pile of sand which threw him off. On re-starting, his kickstart broke and sprung back punching a hole in his engine casing. We limped to the ferry with oil pouring out of Herbie’s bike, he urgently needed a good mechanic in Dibrugarh on the other side of the river. It had been quite a morning.

'Ferry Crossing'

With Herbie’s bike fixed with some Indian ingenuity and some metal poxy we headed off to Kaziranga National Park, home to 80% of the worlds one horned rhino….

We’d heard from a guy we met on the ferry that the East side of the N.P was the most beautiful, with the least visitors and biggest concentration of wildlife. With the east having no accommodation we planned to stay in the central area, take an elephant ride in the morning and then take the bikes over to the East and do a late afternoon jeep ride around the park, that way we would get the best of both worlds.

Early Morning Elephant Ride

I must admit the jeep ride was absolutely stunning with herds of wild forest elephants, boar, eagles, buffalo, rhinos and the Siberian duck which makes an incredible migration every year across the Himalaya from it’s summer home in Russia. The terrain is a mix of jungle, rivers, waterholes and tall grasslands.

We knew we were going to be in for a treat, within 5 minutes of entering the park…

Turning a corner we came across 2 male rhinos fighting, presumably over a female. On seeing us, one of the rhinos turned and charged the jeep with blood running down it’s side. A warning shot into the air from a park ranger was enough to spooked the animal into changing it’s course and running off into the bushes.
Very exciting.

Park Rangers on bikes!

Tiger Scratching Post

Wild Beast on the Loose

Eastern Kaziranga N.P

Meghalaya….

The state of Meghalaya occupies a 2000 meter plateau wedged between Assam and the lowlands of Bangladesh creating a very unique climate.
Officially the wettest place on Earth, Mawsynram in the south of the state gets over 20 metres of rainfall each year.

As with all other states in the NE each has it’s own distinct cultural identity. Unusually for India the tribal groups in Meghalaya are predominantly matriarchal with the wealth and decision making of each family passing down through the female line. This was certainly obvious while walking round the state capital, Shillong. Couples openly holding hands and kissing in public, unheard of in the rest of India.

Road to Shillong

Shillong is home to the most bizarre and unique forms of gambling. Legalised a few years ago the Archery Stakes are akin to the Shillong national lottery with people placing bets as far away as Calcutta on the twice daily event.

Held in a small field on the outskirts of town, 1500 arrows are fired at a cylindrical bamboo target for 4 minutes by up to 20 archers. Bets are place on numbers between 1 and 100 with the winning number coming from the last 2 digits of the count of successful arrows, receiving odds of 80:1 on the bet placed.
As last of the big spenders, I’d bet $1 on 68. The count came in at 864 with 64 being the winning number, so close yet so far. I could have been a very rich man.

The Archery Stakes

The people of India have to be some of the most unique people on this planet. Loud, colourful, curious, a little bit crazy and always friendly, they have a zest for life seen in very few other places on this planet. They also have a kind of innocence that really endears you to them. I have to say I really loved the people of India.

Road to the Border

Time to move on to our last country in the Subcontinent, Bangladesh……..

The Quiet Highway

2009-12-16T01:02:00.000-08:00

Nepal…..

We crossed the boarder with little fuss and started our first day in Nepal…

Heading for the border town of Mahendranagar, we quickly found a hotel on the edge of town. As we arrived there was a group of 12 Czech bikers on Royal Enfields readying themselves to head East. After a brief chat we waved them off, no doubt we would meet them again.
The next day we headed off east in the direction of Royal Bardia National Park for a few days relaxation and a spot of nature watching.
One thing i couldn’t get over was how quiet the roads were compared to India, in fact most of the traffic on the main highway running the length of the Terai (flat plains) seemed to consist of bicycles with a few trucks and buses thrown in for good measure.

Nepal is a country of 2 halves. Stretching the length of the country in the North are the mighty Himalyas and in the South the flat furtile lowlands of the Terai, with the population split 50 - 50 between the two areas.
With a population of 23 million, 85% of which living in rural areas, the environmental footprint of the country is much smaller than it’s Indian cousin across the border.

The road to Bardia

Royal Bardia National Park..

Heading off the main road we headed up a 12k dirt road to a lovely forest lodge in an idyllic setting on the fringes of the main park entrance. As we turned into the lodge we notice the bikes of the Czech guys parked up along the perimeter fence.

Bardie N.P

After looking at the possible tours we decided on a rafting trip, this would allow us to cover a larger area than the elephant rides and it had the added bonus that we could take a couple of beers and spend the day drifting down a river enjoying the sunshine.
What we didn’t realise until afterwards was that the park is very sparsely populated with wildlife. It had been a really nice relaxing day but we had seen very little wildlife bar a few monkeys. I guess that’s the nature of national parks. We decided we’d have another go at a later date in Assam in NE India.
We then headed off the Terai on a loop through the mountains. This would bring us around to the main road heading up to Pokhara, a tourist town which is the jump off point to the famous Annapurna Circuit, an 18 day trek one of the most popular in Nepal.

The road to Tansen

It was nice to get into the mountains, to a cooler climate and some twisting roads. After a crazy little dirt section we made it to Tamghas and a nights stopover before heading off to the hill station town of Tansen. The road to Tansen was one of the best so far.

The roads in India tend to hug the valley floor while the roads in Nepal follow the tops of ridges connecting the villages and affording superb views of snow capped peaks and rolling hills on all sides. It had been a lovely days drive.

Tansen is a nice medieval town perched high above the Kali Gandaki river. Tansen, once the capital of the Magar kingdom and one of the most powerful in Nepal, became a Newari trading post on the trade route between India and Tibet. After a day wandering around the town we headed off to Pokhara for a few days break and to celebrate Herbie’s birthday.

Tansen

Pokhara..

Towards Pokhara

The main tourist area of Pokhara is built along the shores of the lovely Phewa Tal lake, this would be our base for the next 4 days.

Pokhara

On the way back from a walk along the lake we popped into Khems Café, a little bamboo shack built next to the lake. 7 hours later we left a little worse for ware but we’d made some new friends. The owners had decided that they wanted to throw a barbeque for Herbie’s birthday so it was to became the regular drinking den for our time in the town.

Herbie's Brithday Celebrations

It was time to move on so we popped in to Khems to say goodbye to the guys and then headed off East towards the Capital, Kathmandu.

We’d been told about a nice temple at Manakamana, a short cable car ride from the main highway.

The temple is dedicated to one of the few female Hindu gods, we’d heard it was the site of many animal sacrifice. The writing was on the wall when we reached the top of the cable car and found lots of vendors selling live goats and people leading them up the steps towards the temple itself.

Manakamana Temple

Next to the temple is a special walled off area where the killing takes place. Nothing more than an alter, a wooden post and a drain in the floor with a guy who’s sole job was to despatch the hapless animals. We looked on at the gruesome sight of chickens and goats getting their heads sawn off with a very sharp Gurhka knife. In fact the blood lust gets so great during an annual festival that 500 thousand animals meet their maker during a 2 week period.

The killing Ground

Joining the main highway again we came across many trucks and cars blocking the road. Wondering what it was all about we pushed on through Army barricades and came across a Maoist demonstration blocking the main road. Rather than being stopped we were waved through with smiles and shouts of hello and carried on our way with no bother to KTM.

Road to KTM

The Maoist party, policies based on the teachings of Chairman Mao, were disillusioned during the late 90’s due government corruption and the lack of help in dragging Nepal out of an economic slump. The party and their supporters started a violent campaign against the government which lead to bombings, abductions, executions on both sides. In 2003 and 2005 the Maoists declared truces with the government which ultimately broke down leaving the country in the same uncertain position it had been in before. Finally with overwhelming support from the young and the rural areas the Maoists came to power in 2008 but it was to be a brief occupation. The now Maoist Prime Minister sacked the head of the army, before he had chance to instate his own man he was caught on camera giving a speech at a Maoist rally state that he was intending to make the country a police state. Losing all credibility he resigned after only 9 months in charge leaving the future of the government in some uncertainty….

What you do in Kathmandu?….

We found a nice little hotel down a quite street just off the main tourist area Thamel, the Kao San Road of Kathmandu. It was perfect, two double rooms with a balcony pretty much all to ourselves, a great place to chill out.

KTM

Before we’d arrived in KTM I’d sent an email to my old London footy mate Lee, who was now teaching art in KTM, to let him now that we were turning up in a couple of days time. It was good to see a familiar face from back home and Lee did a great job of introducing us to the ex-pat community and taking us out to birthday parties and poker nights. A great guy who made sure we had a really good time while in KTM.

Durban Square

We thought we’d better do some touristy things while in KTM so we took a bus out to the town of Bhaktapur. Being traffic free the old town is an absolute pleasure to walk round. A series of cobbled streets connecting large squares with a multitude of temples, shrines, water tanks and impressive monuments. It’s the perfect place to spend a day just wandering and seeing what’s around the next corner.

Bhaktapur

It was time to head back towards Indian so we took off at lunch time with slightly fuzzy heads after a some goodbye drinks with Lee. The plan was to make Indian over the next 2 days but one thing I’ve learen’t about bike travel is the most detailed plans are never guarenteed. Planning to pick fuel upon on the way we soon realised that all the petrol stations were completely dry.
Nepal has a real problem with petrol shortages, especially in the East. They buy all their fuel from Indian and when Nepal makes a late payment India cut the supple, resulting in tight government control and a weekly quota for each station.
We were starting to think we were going to be stuck until a new supply came through. Luck would have it Herbie found a garage who took pity on some desperate tourists and sold us 20 litres out of a Jerry Can round the back of station, enough to get us back to the Terai. What a real stroke of luck.

An American guy living in KTM had told us about a 40K off-road section about 70 k’s out of KTM, this was to become the mother of all dirt trails.

Herbie had forged slightly ahead of me as I popped down a bank and stopped in my tracks as i wondered where the road gone. With river crossings you can usually see an entry and exit point, here the road just stopped at the river. After asking a few locals several times and have them pointing in the direction of the river I realised that the river was the road! Trying to avoid the deepest bits we wove either side of the bank constantly getting bogged down in mud with both of us having to push the bikes through one by one. After much struggle we decided the river was the way to go and after a couple of hundred yards we were out the other side. The road then turned into very steep slopes of deep fine powdery sand and rocks with a few more river crossings and bogs thrown in for good measure. It certainly pushed both of us beyond anything we’d ridden before.

Off-Road Mayhem

We’d made to within 10k’s of the tarmac but it was getting too dark and dangerous to continued so we stopped at a hamlet of 3 houses and asked if we could stay the night. Thankly the family took us in and save us from a night sleeping rough. They were a real lovely family who provided us with good food and a warm bed.

Village Life

In the morning we give them a gift of a little bit of money and waved goodbye and headed off towards the far eastern border.

Hurray for Tarmac!

It was time head back into India and some adventure in the wild North East region…..

The Peace Riders

2009-11-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

Amristar….

After chasing round the town to find a hotel with parking we decided to hire a rikshaw driver and followed him to the Tourist Guest House (the cheapest place to stay in town), our home for the next 2 days…

Amristar is the home to one of the holliest Sikh temples in India, the Golden Temple. Sikh temples require the head to be covered within the grounds so we strapped on a hanky handed out at the gate and wandered through the entrance.
Built with marble taken from the Lahore Fort, the temple covered in gold and surrounded by a square lake, gleams in the bright Indian sunshine. All around the lake there are people taking dips under the belief that the water has curative properties.

Amristar

A festival near the Golden Temple

The Golden Temple

We were in need of a good night out after being starved of beer for the last 5 weeks in Pakistan. Chandigarh the modern state capital looked like our best option…
Chandigarh has only been in existence since the 50’s, designed and built on the grid system it has all the trappings of a modern city. With the total ban on industrial activity the air pollution found in other Indian cities has been greatly limited in Chandigarh.

We checked in at a hotel and the following day we headed out to do some tourist stuff at the weird and wonderful Nek Chand’s Rock Garden.

The garden created by Nik Chand, a former road inspector, is a crazy maze of paths and corridors built with stones from a nearby quarry and domestic rubbish transformed into sculptures. Receiving 5000 visitors a day it’s one of India’s most popular attractions, second only to the Taj Mahal. The scale of the sight is simply enormous. Built in the forest during the construction of Chandigarh, the place was only discovered after 15 years of work when a government survey team stumbled upon it in 1973. The local government, recognising the site as a cultural asset, gave Chand 50 labours and paid him a salary to continue his work. Now in his 80’s, Chand continues his work still today.

The Rock Garden

It was time head North to Mcloudganj the home of the exiled Dalai Lama.

The road to Mcloudganj

Street Cows are everywhere, they live off rubbish in the street. I even saw one eating cardboard!

The town itself is perch on a mountain with great views of the valleys below. The place has now been taken over by backpacker hostels and tack shops. Full of stoned hippies preaching love and peace, it’s definitely not my sort of place. After a couple of days it was time to head East to Manali, a transit point to the Spitti valley.
Manali, a nice town in the mountains among a forest of huge trees would be our base to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of light and prosperity. Diwali is the equivalent of Christmas for Hindu’s, it culminates in a big celebration with fireworks in the streets and lots of shopping.

Our Diwali Celebration

Manali

Its was now time to head to the Spitti valley. There are 2 high passes of 4000 metres to negotiate to enter the valley, this could be our sticking point as it was starting to get late in the year for such high terrain. Further North, Ladakh and Kasmir, home to the highest road pass in the world, were already impassable so it would be touch and go. We reached just below the first pass and the temperature had already dropped to 1 degree with biting winds taking it way below zero. We asked around at some cafes and were told that the pass was shut due to snow. Even if we made it over the first pass the second higher pass would be more problematic, it was time to re-think our route and head East towards Nepal……

Road to the Pass

Due to the amount of traffic on the trunk roads we decided that while in India we’d start using the smaller back roads through the mountains. This would give us the added bonus of getting away from the tourist hotspots and we would get to see villages that don’t get tourists, giving us a feel for Indian village life. We spent 2 fantastic days travelling through lovely valleys on small roads with no traffic meeting fantastically friendly, warm people, with big smiles and waves where ever we went. We then arrived at the famous town of Rishekesh, a pilgrimage sight for Indians to bath in the holy Ganga (Ganges) and also a place that tourists flock to to get their Ashram experience. Ashrams are temples where visitors can go to practice meditation and Yoga and find their ‘spiritual side’.

Being a dry town it was a surprise that within 10 minutes of arriving at the our hotel we had already ingratiated ourselves with the owners and were sat drinking whiskey and coke. Indian is a country where anything is possible…..

Rishekesh

On the morning we were due to leave the owner organised an interview with TV100 News Channel about our travels. It was quite a funny experience. The channel had decided to use the angle that we were travelling for peace. As well as the standard questions about where we are from, where we had travelled, how we met, etc, there were questions about Pakistan and the people, how people are the same the world over and how we should live together in peace. Afterwards I felt quite the hippie. As we were about to leave a national newspaper also turned up for another interview. We left being filmed riding out the gates of the hotel, a very surreal start to the day……

It wouldn’t be a blog about overlanding in Indian without talking about the traffic. Indians have a driving style that ranges form reckless in the mild cases to suicidal at the extreme. There are literally no rules. People drive the wrong way up duel carriageways, overtake on blind corners and pull out without looking. In fact it’s the country with the most unobservant drivers I’ve ever seen in my life. Vehicles may as well come without mirrors or indicators. The only thing indicates seem to be used for is telling the oncoming or overtaking traffic which side you should pass them on.
Without formal training and license a large number of the road users just don’t understand what is good driving.
There’s been a lot of negative things written about the Indian truck drivers, from my experience they seem to be the best drivers on the road. The real lunatics are the bus drivers. Driving like they’re taking part in a Formula 1 Grand Prix, they are the menace of the Indian roads.
You find yourself diving for the dirt at the side of the road at least once a day. The only way to deal with it is to drive ultra defensively.

We then spent 3 fantastic days doing a loop on some great roads through Northern Uttarkhand. This took us to the boarder town of Tanakpur. Next stop Nepal……..

Curry Heaven

2009-10-15T00:10:00.000-07:00

Pakistan....

The Pakistan side couldn’t be more different in more ways than one. The KKH suddenly turns from wide perfect tarmac into a single track dirt road. There’s also a change in the people, lots of waves, smiles and shouts of hello as we sped past.
The road on the Pakistan side is simple stunning. Huge rock walls through stunning canyons past snow capped peaks. The KKH on the Pakistan is under construction to Islamabad and on to Karachi in the South. The upgrade is being down by the Chinese as they want to increase their export volume through the sea port of Karachi.

The KKH -T Road to Passu

We quickly made it through the Pakistan border and headed to Passu for a couple of days of down time.

I woke in the morning to my first puncture on the trip. It was a perfect opportunity to stick on the new front knobbly tyre, previously bought in Kazakhstan. With new tyre and inner tube it was now time to head South…..

The area now know as Pakistan was originally ruled by the Indus civilisation of which little is know. After several changing civilisations, it was then ruled by Alexander the Great. The Mauryas, then the Kushans ruled entering from Afghanistan fusing Greek culture left by Alexander with Indian culture. The Mughals dominated the 16th and 17th century celebrated for their artistic and administrative prowess.
In the 17th century the area came under British rule after the British East India Company came to trade. They set up factories and eventually started to apply British law.
Two men are credited for securing the existence of Pakistan, Allama Mohammed Iqbal, a poet and philosopher from Lahore and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The British were initially reluctant to divide the continent but with increased pressure for an independent India a concession was made to put more Indians into positions in the government. The demand for an independent Pakistan was so great that the government finally agreed and an Independent Pakistan was born on 14th August 1947. Even after Partition Pakistan was split into two with what is now Bangladesh (formerly Bengali East Pakistan) coming under Pakistan rule. Bangladesh finally secured itself as a separate country in December 1971 with the help of India after much loss of life.
During the soviet invasion the US backed the training of Mujaheddin in the tribal areas of Pakistan hoping that once the conflict was over they would form a new government. When this failed the Pakistan government backed the Taliban to form a new government and create stability in the region. Since that has failed the Pakistan government have attempted to oust the Taliban with pressure from the US post 9/11. This leaves the government in Pakistan in a difficult position, on one hand wanting to encourage Islamic militancy so it has support for the struggles against India in the disputed region of Kashmir while on the other appeasing the US in attempt to drive the Taliban out of Pakistan….

The road to Karimabad

An hours drive from Passu took us to Karimabad, a lovely little town nestled in a valley surrounded by towering snow capped peaks and overlooked by the Altit Fort.

The Altit Fort

Around Karimabad

Karimabad is a nice place to spent some time catching up on the Internet and eating great food. With a little side trip up the Hoper valley and a 1 hour walk down to the stunning Hoper glacier it was a fantastic few days.

Hoper Valley and Hoper Glacier

While walking around Karimabad i happened upon a school. They were teaching an English class in the playground so I sat down to watch. The inevitable happen and I got asked to introduce myself to the class and then go through some exercises with the students.

My First teaching Job

The whole Northern region was once autonomous. During the British rule even after separation the North was left to govern itself. It was only at a latter date when the region was governed by Indian Kashmir that the people were given the option of joining Indian Kashmir or Pakistan. With the vast majority of the population being Muslim, Pakistan was chosen.

The people of Passu and Karimabad are predominantly Ismaili’s, in the 8th century they split from the Shiite arm of Islam. The Ismalis practice a more relaxed version of Islam, where the style of prayer is more of a personnel matter and the community hall has replaced the mosque as the place of worship. They do not fast during Ramadan and have a more relaxed view on drinking, through history they have been known for their wine making and produce an excellent apple brandy. In fact I found the Ismalis an educated, friendly, gentle, warm and open people, very tolerant to others viewpoints and religions.

Next stop Skardu via a nights stopover in Gilgit.
At Gilgit we met up with Babak who we’d crossed through China with and as threesome we headed off East to Skardu.

Gilgit

The road is a lovely narrow tarmac road running along a canyon which opens up 20k’s before Skardu into a wide valley that acts as flood basin for the river below.

Road to Skardu

Skardu is a dusty one street town with not much to see but it’s a perfect jumping off point to trekking in the East. We spent a couple of days getting my panniers welded and organising a guide to do my first proper trek of the trip.

Beautifully Painted Pakistan Trucks

We’d planned a 4 day trek to Machula La, a 5000 metre pass on the shoulder of Machula in the Hushe valley, hoping to get a sighting of K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

We took the road up to the village of Machula where we met our guide for the start of the trek. It wasn’t the easiest introduction, 3 days of very steep climbing up to the pass.

Getting Ready for the Trek

Above the First Nights Camp

At the Pass

Herbie, Babak, myself, the Porters and Guide

During the trek we where fed like kings having a 3 course meal cooked for us every night. At the start of the 4 day it was time to head down. It had been a hard 3 days especially at such high altitudes.
We descended 3000 metres in one day, by the time we got to the bottom all our legs were like jelly. After a break and some lunch we hopped back on the bikes and headed back to Skardu for a days rest before heading off on a 200k dirt road across the Deosai Plains.

The Deosai Plain is a 4000 metre high plateau that cuts across land very reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands. The road was pretty tricky with babak finding the road particularly difficult with his heavy bike, a BMW 1200cc bike with road tyres.
Then we came across a massive river crossing , maybe 30-40 metres wide, we crossed one by one. Herbie going first almost came off, then it was my turn. After getting half way across a huge rock appeared under the water, trying to avoid it I lost momentum and dropped the bike. Picking it up with the help of Herbie, I started the bike and fishtailed out on to the other bank. It was then Babaks turn and the inevitable happened after only 10 feet. Myself and herbie both rushing back into the river to help push him out. We were all wet through, it would be a couple of days before our boots finally dried out. All part of the fun of back roads.

The Scottish Highlands?

Golden Marmots

Quaint Villages are Everywhere

Admiring a Waterfall

We made it to Astor and then headed on to Chilas for the night.
Chilas is due to be flooded because of a hydroelectric dam being completed over the next couple of years. Each household is being paid 300,000 rupees to relocate to another region with families heading for other towns depending on there religion, whether Sunni, Shir or Ismali. Pakistan has a massive problem with electricity, with power cuts of up to 5 or 6 times a day. Due to this the government have started a big programme of building dams and power stations with a promise to have no power cuts by the middle of next year.

Chilas Street Food

We’d heard that Chilas could be an unfriendly town, with close proximity to the Swatt valley giving it a more edgy feel. We found the place completely the opposite and during an evening walking along the one street town we met some locals who invited us to a Chai shop for some super sweet Pakistani tea.
5 of the guys in the group had left the Swatt valley because of the operations currently going on there with the Pakistan Army. They were saying that all the normal people had left the valley because the army are now indiscriminatingly killing everyone in an effort to ride the North West Frontier Province of Taliban. It’s difficult to really know what is actually happening as there is a total media blackout in the region.

Tea with the Swatt Valley Guys

Saying all this, Pakistan is an extremely safe country to travel in and the way the media in the West portrays the country is not an accurate reflection of what is actually happening here. The tourist industry is certainly suffering because of this, with the group sometimes being the only residents in some of the hotels where at this time of year they would usually be fully booked.
The problems are confined to a small part of the country, mainly the areas bordering Afghanistan.

Herbie and myself headed off the KKH on the direct road South towards Islamabad as Babak headed on to Islamabad down the KKH.
The road consists of 2 beautiful valleys where time has literally stood still. Connected by the stunning Barrbosa Pass it was a fantastic days riding. The road is being slowly upgraded to become part of the KKH to replace the old longer section that cuts near the problem areas of the Swatt. As a result it’s perfect tarmac with 15 miles of bad dirt either side of the pass.

The Bridge is Out!

At the Top of the Pass

We made it to Naran where we planned to stay for a couple of days. With Ollie and Jenny turning up we were now 4 so we all went for a days fishing on a lake above the town. In true bad angler style we caught nothing bar a few rocks and some weeds.

Blinged Up Tractor

Hitching a Ride

Naran

Fishing Guru Testing the Conditions

One Man and his Rod

Pakistani Cattle Truck

We then headed out of the mountains to a flatter hotter Pakistan and along a 60k road of wonderful endless bends on a perfect wide road up to the old British hill station of Murree which is now an elite holiday destination for locals wanting to escape the heat of summertime in Islamabad.
Ramadam was now coming to an end culminating with Eid, a 3 day celebration, that symbolises the end of a month long of fasting.

After another 50k’s we were in Islamabad and the start of the process of aquiring our India visas.
We then found out we would have to wait 13 days for our visa so we headed off to Lahore to spend our time there rather than Islamabad. Due to the fact it’s been existence for a mere 50 years, Islamabad has very little to see as far tourists are concerned.

Lahore…..

Lahore is a fantastic city with great sites such as the Lahore fort, the amazing Badshahi Mosque and the wonderful old city with it’s narrow winding streets and food stalls on every corner.

Badshahi Mosque

Lahore Fort

The Old Town

First we had to get some repairs done. Herbie had been nursing an Oil leak for 3 months and I needed a new bulb for the headlight and see if I could get a new screen for the bike. I managed to find a guy that made me a new screen from scratch from a piece of clear sheet plastic fully molded to the original shape for the princely some of a tenner.

Lahore Street Life

While killing some time waiting for the visa we went out to the Wagah border (passage to India) to see the famous flag ceremony from the Pakistan side. The over the top closing of the border ceremony has been performed daily since 1948, shortly after Partition, and is like no other border on earth. It’s a wonderful fusion of colonial style pomp, comical Monty Pythonesque goose stepping, snorting, stomping, killer glares and deadly serious national riverly. In fact thousands of people show up daily to cheer on their side it true football terrace style. It so popular that grandstands have been constructed to house all the spectators. The spectical ends with the simultaneous lowering and folding of the national flags and the slamming shut of the gates dividing the two countries.

The Crazy Boarder Closing Ceromony

While in Lahore Jean Yves and myself met a guide who suggested taking us to a 3 day festival on the outskirts of town followed by Sufi night, held every Thursday. It ended up being a crazy experience with the 2 of us being the only tourist there. As well as traditional Sufi singing and drumming they had Khabadi (a sport which is a combination of a game of tag with slapping and wrestling) and the amazing horse dancing where horses are trained for up to a year to dance to the pounding of drums.
We were treated like royalty, always ushered to seats at the front and mobbed by hundreds of people while walking around.

Horse Dancing

Khabadi, a Serious Game of Tag

Jean Yves and a Sufi Guru

Sufi Temple

The Wedding Party Head for the Brides House Carrying the Marriage Chair

Pakistan had been amazing. The people are friendly, educated and very interested to find out what you are doing in their country. The more I travel in Muslim countries the more I want to visit others. The people have an honesty about them that you don’t tend to find elsewhere. In fact we never bargained because people do not try to rip you off. They are also very respectful of your personal space, it’s real hastle free travel.

After nipping back to Islamabad to pick up our visas it was no time to head off to India and the Golden Temple of Amristar……..

Chinese Democracy

2009-09-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

China……

We took a full day to get to Kashgar in China after crossing the Touragart Pass, picking up our guide for the Chinese leg of the journey and travelling a 100ks of no-mans-land, before crossing through the Chinese boarder and entering Kashgar.

The Road to Kashgar

Kashgar…..

It was nice to be eating good Chinese food after the limited fair in Central Asia and have a couple of big nights out with a bit of clubbing thrown in.
I have to say Kashgar is a lovely city and definitely the highlight of China.

Xinjiang province is a mix of Uyghur People and Han Chinese. The Uyghur people, being the original residents, are related to the tribes of Central Asia. Subsequently Kashgar is a mix of Uyghur and modern Chinese architecture giving the town a diverse feel.

Photos of Kashgar

Xinjiang province has had many problems in recent months, primarily in Urumqi (North of Kashgar), where riots have recently occurred with fighting between the Uyghurs and the Han Chinese. The Han make up 90% of the countries population and have been shipped in wholesale to the province by the government in an attempt water down the Uyghur majority, similar to the situation in Tibet. With government backing the Han have been taking the best jobs despite sometimes being less qualified than the Uyghurs, creating great tension which ended with the rioting.
The government army then stepped in to quash the uprising culminating a large loss of life. In true Chinese style a media blackout was enforced with the shutting down of internet access and all international phone calls.

While, on our China leg we visited a desert resort in the Taklamakan Desert (the second largest after the Sahara), a moutain resort and a lake resort at Kara Kul.

Travelling Towards Tashkurgan

All were sanitised versions of potentially great beauty spots. With constant charges, people trying to fleece money from us and the restrictions given by ’our guide’ (government spy/nanny) it was becoming apparent that the group were becoming increasingly frustrated.
The guide was next to useless, giving very little information about the area and things seen. When asked a question the answer was usually just made up on the spot.
The final straw came when they tried to charge us for a national park entry fee which was essentially a 50 yard stretch around a litter strew lake just off the main Karakoram Highway. Enough was enough and the group decided to push on to Tashkurgan and exit china a day earlier than expected.

The Road to Pakistan

I must admit I found the people consistently rude and unfriendly. I'm sure there are nice people in China and it would probably be better if you have the freedom of movement to go where you want.

It’s definitely a cultural thing, maybe driven by a government that has created bureaucracy that renders it’s people inflexible and incapable of making decsions for themselves through fear of getting in trouble.

No where is this more prevalent than in the officials (police and boarder guards).
On exit from China we had a sit in at customs where we refused to pay 10 times over the normal price for disinfecting our vehicles. This had already been done on entry but they insisted on disinfecting again as we didn’t have the reciept from the disinfection process on entry! They then decided the cost was for checking the vehicles, a fairly transparent attempt to lighten our wallets. Eventually they let us leave 4 hours after entering customs but without their baksheesh (bride).
The Pakistan side could not be more different with welcoming smiles and friendly handshakes all around we breezed into Pakistan.

Good riddens China, hello friendly Pakistan…….

UK Bar Brawl ( The return of Terry Butcher)

2009-09-04T02:29:00.000-07:00

In Tajikistan, Joe had mentioned a horse festival being held on the 1st of September in the mountains at the base camp of Peak Lenin, just across the boarder in Kyrgyzstan. This became our next destination as we headed off on a superb 180k dirt road to reach the foot of the high peaks.

Road to the festival

Peak Lenin is fame for being the highest mountain in Kyrgyzstan. Climbing the peak is a 22 day round trip. While not particularly technically demanding the bulk of the problems come from the physical exertion needed to operate at 7000+ metres, with altitude sickness an ever present danger.

Peak Lenin

Pictures of the base camp valley

Kyrgyzstan is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to Central Asia. Covered in grassland, it’s a green oasis surrounded by the stark beauty of Tajikistan to the south, the desert land of Uzbekistan to the west, the step of Kazakhstan to the north and Xinjang, the mountainous region of China to the east.

There are two things that symbolize Kyrgyzstan above all else, the horse and the Yurt. Historically a nomadic race, the horse and the Yurt still play a large part in Kyrgyz culture. In fact the wooden crisscross pattern that appears on the top of all traditional Yurts also appears on the national flag.

Building the Yurt

Finished Article

Relaxing in the yurt after a dusty Ride

We arrived at base camp just before nightfall and sorted ourselves a Yurt Stay for the next 2 nights.

Horse festivals are held all over Kyrgyzstan during the first few days of August. The one at peak Lenin was being held for the first time to encourage the revival traditional customs and boost the local economy by enticing more tourists into the area.

The young competitors gathering

Along with singing and dancing there are four main horse games played at the festival.
The first being a game where the rider must race down a fenced corridor stooping down to snatch small bean bags from the ground, attempting to pick up as many as possible in 2 runs.
There’s then horse wrestling where rides must attempt to pull each other from their mount.
Kyz Kuu is where a man on horseback chases a girl, also on horseback, and tries to kiss her on the cheek. Traditionally, if the guy succeeds within an allotted distance they would then be betrothed to marry. For the guys that don’t catch the women the roles are reversed and the woman chases the man with a whip attempting to lash him across the back.
The finale is the famous headless goat game, Buzkashi. A goat is killed, gutted and has it’s head removed. The players are split into 2 teams and must attempt to pick up the goat and and place it on the oppositions flag pole.

The first game

Horse Wrestling

The things you have to do to get a date

The level of horsemanship shown by all the competitors was amazing. In the countryside all people learn to ride a horse from a very early age, we even saw kids not much older than 7 or 8 riding full sized horses.

The games had been fantastic but it was now time to head North to the city of Osh, get a hotel and have a much needed shower.

Osh is a nice city, probably one of the best we experienced in Central Asia, with lots of day to day hustle and bustle and with some good restaurants it made a nice stopover on the way to the capital Biskek.

The city was slightly marred by an incident that happened on a night out, which ended up with a trip to hospital for Ollie and 3 stitches in his forehead.
The following explains how things unfolded as seen through my eyes………

It had been a good evening in a lovely little outside restaurant with much beer and vodka consumed and the best Shaslik (beef shish kebab) I’d tasted in the whole of Central Asia.

Nathan (another British biker) had been acting like an idiot all evening and Ollie fueled by a bit of Vodka had told the guy what he thought of him in no uncertain terms.

I’d been stood away from the table when it happened. I didn’t see the first blow but Nathan had come up behind Ollie and hit him with a stein glass across the head twice, with the third blow being deflected by a Australian guy who had been sitting close by. It was a real cheap shot and cowardly at the extreme.

Nathan then appeared beside me, instinctively I swung a left hook and knocked the guy out.
Chaos ensued, ending up with me in a taxi trying to find the hospital Ollie had been taken. Eventually I found the hospital and Ollie and Jenny emerged with Ollie in a bloodstained top and a head-bandage reminiscent of Terry Butchers infamous appearance for England in the 1989 World Cup Qualifier against Sweden. Thankfully he’d only suffered a cut on the top of head and a few stitches to the forehead, it could have been much worse.
It was time to head to Bishkek and get away from the madness of the previous evening….

The road to Bishkek

After a couple of days camping by a lake, enjoying fresh fish straight from the fisherman’s boat, Ollie and Jenny headed off to a valley while myself and Herbie headed on to Bishkek in search of tyres.

Crossing the first major pass

Sampling honey and jam by the roadside

Herbie collecting wood for a camp fire by the lake

The source of our fresh fish

The final pass before Bishkek

After crossing the final pass, Herbie pushed on to Bishkek having nursed a puncture in his rear tyre which had been getting progressively worse. Catching up, traveling at 70mph along the valley floor, a dog suddenly shot across the road in front of me. Thinking all was fine as the dog passed the front of the bike, it suddenly turned sharply straight under the front wheel.
Hearing the yelps, I looked in the mirror to see the dog limp down a slope to the river. Parking up, I wandered down to find it laid in the river with the owner dragging the now dead dog up the bank. After lots of apologies, and feeling slightly guilty for killing someone’s dog in front of his family, I offered the guy 500 sum (about $10). He seemed more than happy and even offered me Chai (Tea) at his house in the village.

Finally we made to Bishkek putting a close on a very eventful few days…

After spending a few fruitless days trying to buy new set of off-road tyres in Bishkek, I made the decision to head-off alone to Almaty in Kazakhstan where I knew it was possible to get tyres for big bikes…

Kazakhstan……

I heard many things from other travellers about the people in Kazakhstan, some claimed it to be the most unfriendly of the stans. I decided to go with an open mind and see for myself…..

The Kazaks have a real affinity to Russia, probably more so than any of the other stans. They are grateful for the boost in their economy due the advancements brought by the previous occupation. Sub-sequentially half of the population is still made up of Russians.
I also found Almaty to have more English speakers than any other place in the region and a more European feel to the city.

The people at first seem less friendly but once you scratch the surface and get to know them a little they can be capable of incredible feats of generosity, as I was to find out over the 3 days spent in the country.

With the help of a local guy who’s number I’d been given by a bikeshop in Bishkek, I trawled around a few shops and finally found a set of Metzler knobblies that fitted the bike perfectly. The guy even took me to his mates garage and they fitted the tyre for free. It was amazing that someone who had never met me before gave up half his day off to help a stranger in need.

It was time to head back to Kyrgyzstan so i left Almaty heading East towards the Sharyn Canyon where I’d planned to camp the night before heading to the small boarder just South of Kegan.

The sharyn Canyon cut into the Kazak step

While setting up camp at the canyon a Kazak guy wandered over and invited me to join him, his friend and their 2 girlfriends for some food and the obligatory couple of vodkas. On a day trip from Almaty, they were visiting one of the guys brother who had a farm in Kegan where they'd both grown up.
Despite my limited Russian and their limited English they insisted that I should come and stay at the brothers house. It was difficult to refuse such a generous offer……

The brothers wife put on a huge spread.
The food kept coming for 3 hours including endless toasts with vodka and a bit of drunken singing. The finale came with the Kazak national dish, Bisbemark.
The recipe for Bisbemark is pretty simple. Take one sheep-head, intestines, stomach lining, liver, heart and some of the meat and boil for 3 hours. The dish is them served on a platter and the guests are invited to help themselves.
The host took a knife and gouged the eye from the head, as the honored guest it was offered up to me first. Knowing that it was an insult to refuse, i took the eye and swallowed. It wasn’t too bad, better than I thought. Growing up eating offal in the North-East had served me well.

The brother's family

Everyone together after much vodka

After handshakes and hugs all round, I headed off on the last 5k‘s to the boarder with a slightly sore head and the feeling that I’d been privileged to meet such great people and gain a glimpse of traditional Kazak life.

Back to Kyrgyzstan……

I met up with Ollie, Jenny and Herbie again on the shores at lake Ysyk-Kol at Cholpon-Ata a Russian/ Kazak beach resort where we spent a couple of days swimming, eating and relaxing.

Cholpon-Ata beach

We all headed off to the South-side of the lake to the valley of the broken heart with a stopover for myself and Herbie in Karakol to use the internet.
The Valley of the Broken Heart gets it’s name from a huge red rock split right down the middle. Legend has it that two suitors spilled blood in a fight over a beautiful woman; both died, and the rock is her broken heart.

The Seven Bulls

The broken Heart

Jean-Yves off-roading on his 30 year old Vespa

The Eagle has landed

Spending a couple of days relaxing in a yurt in the beautiful alpine valley, riding horses and taking the unloaded bikes up some hard tracks was great fun but time was pressing, we had to get to China for the start of our visas in 4 days.

One man and his horse

Krygyz Kettle

Making Bread

A visitor to the Yurt

Heading west along the lake shore we decided to take the 200km old road to Naryn. It turned out to be the hardest dirt road either of us had ever been on…..

At first the track started with deep sand then became a very rough rock strew road which turned into switchbacks as we gained height. About 300 meters from the pass the road disintegrated into 40 degree scree slopes as we had to force the bikes up the track. Herbie’s bike was struggling to cope with the terrain and altitude; he was having problems kick-starting the bike and at points had to walk it up some of the slopes. Where as the Beamer seemed to be dealing with the anything thrown at it, powering up the harshest of slopes.

The pass

Where's the road gone?

Once over the pass an awesome sight was in front of use…
A remote green valley surrounded by brooding mountains with only Yaks and a couple of yurts for company.

A river bed or a road?

The Beautiful Valley beyond the Pass

Descending down the side of the valley we assumed the worst was over. Little did we know that we had 10 or so river crossings still to come. At points the road had disintegrate completely leaving us with no choice but to leave the track and head off over grass to find ways to get around some of the trickiest sections.
We then came across the worst river crossing I’d seen. About 20 meters wide, the only way over was to ride across the width of the river and travel down a channel with the flow of the water to find a point where the riverbank became less steep and we could blast the bikes up the loose shale bank.

River Crossing Mayhem

7 hours after starting the road we finally made it into Naryn. It had been the worse road but the best road I’d ever ridden.

We spent a couple of days resting in Naryn where we met up with Babak and Jean Yves, the 2 guys sharing the trip through China. It was then off to Tash Rabat an old caravansai (an ancient travelers inn, part of the original silk route) for the group to re-unite for the trip into china.

The China Gang

A Yak

The Caravansai

I loved Central Asia, my favorite countries being Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan for their friendly people and amazing scenery. It’s a region that has surprised and delighted me in many ways, it has certainly been a great adventure. Despite this I was glad to starting a new chapter, Asia sub-continent and specifically China. Here we come!