motorbiketrip

Final Post - Patnem Beach, Goa, India - 14,795 miles from London ... and Ghent, Belgium - 250 miles from London

2007-02-15T13:04:00.000Z

As many of you will now already know on the 30th January 2007 Tom unexpectedly passed away while he was visiting Bombay with friends. His death came as a complete shock to everyone he knew and my heart goes out to all of his family and friends. I for one am still struggling to get my head around what has happened and it is with a real sense of disbelief that I write these few words. Tom was a warm, intelligent and wonderful person and will be sorely missed by all who knew him. We had the most amazing trip down to India and I know that Tom was proud and happy to have achieved what he did in face of the many obstacles and difficulties we faced and the fact that we reached India shows, to my mind, how strong a person he was; during his last few months here in India Tom was incredibly relaxed and was loving life, the people he met and the country he was in and we must take some consolation from that. For my part I could not have had a better travelling companion and friend with which to do what we did and the time we spent together since we left London merely strengthened the friendship we had developed in the years that I have passed since I first got to know him and made me see even more clearly the many qualities Tom had which made him such a good and loyal friend.

If anyone wants to ask me anything about Tom’s death or to pass any messages onto Tom’s family then they should please e-mail me on peter@motorbiketrip.com and I will contact you directly as soon as I can.

We had originally planned that the final entry on the website would be about something that had happened right at the very start of our trip, but we had not told anyone about owing to the fact that it would have been somewhat embarrassing to put as one of our first posts!. To my mind though it only seems right that I finish the website as he had wanted to finish it and so put the post on the site.

On the second day of our trip (6th June 2006 for those who have forgotten – I did!), and after having left the campsite we spent our first night away in, we were making good progress through Belgium with the intention of getting to either Holland or Germany by the end of the day; however, in what was to become a fairly common occurrence for the rest of the trip, disaster stuck. Riding at a speed in the fast lane of the E17, with Tom a few cars ahead of me, I happened to notice lying on the side of the motorway a metal box looking remarkably similar to Tom’s left hand pannier. As I shot past it I realized that in fact it was Tom’s pannier. Hastily cutting across the three lanes of traffic I pulled into the hard shoulder and leaving the bike I ran back just in time to see the pannier be hit by a car. The car was presumably OK as it carried on and seemed to have wavered little in its progress. The pannier had suffered a noticeably worse fate though as I saw Tom’s clothes scattered along the side of the motorway luckily remaining in the central reservation. After waiting for a gap in the traffic I ran across the road, grabbed as much of Tom’s stuff as I could and ran back to the relative safety of the hard shoulder. Getting back to my bike I was, at that moment, called by Tom who had pulled into the service station a few miles further along the motorway because another motorcyclist had pulled up next to him and pointed frantically at Tom’s bike. Tom had not felt anything when the pannier fell off and it was with some shock that, when looking at his bike at the service station, the puzzlement he felt when trying to work out what the other motorcyclist was pointing out was instantly answered by the sight of the gap on the left side of the bike.

He told me afterwards that his first thought when he realized what had happened was that the pannier had hit me and that something had happened to me, but when he saw that the traffic was still flowing he knew that was unlikely. After we had spoken he came back to meet me and just as he arrived the local police pulled up; it seems a passing motorist had called them out having been confused as to why a guy was sitting on the hard shoulder with a BMW bike, a bent metal box and a pile of clothes next to him.

The police helped us to get our things to the service station and once we had sorted ourselves out we were then faced with the problem of how to get out of this mess. In the end we managed to limp to the nearby town of Ghent and spent a few days there getting Tom’s pannier repaired so that we could carry on. The garage who eventually helped us, did manage to rig something together for us and when we got to Oulu we eventually got hold of a replacement pannier. It is amusing now to think that the pannier that fell off in Belgium and which was replaced was in fact the same pannier that was hit by my bike when we had our accident in Kazakhstan!

Written by Peter

Patnam Beach, Goa, India - 14,795 miles from London

2007-01-11T05:39:00.000Z

It is 11th January, but it still seems to be Christmas here in Patnam.

A blog entry by Tom

I’ve moved beaches from Palolem to Patnam, a quieter and more idyllic beach, only a short ride away on the fishing boat that I hired for the move. As I unloaded the metal boxes (I had Peter’s too) and huge top bags I was greeted by sun bathers wanting to know why I had so much luggage and whether I was doing something like making a documentary. Sorry to disappoint, I explained that I was merely on a motorbike trip and was too lazy to pack the bike and would be returning to Palolem to pick it up later.

A holy cow lies on Patnam beach.

So I left Palolem after Christmas and new year with memories of meeting lots of random and many interesting people, late nights and staying awake to watch too many sun rises including the one on Christmas day, an unfestive but very pleasant and drunken Christmas and a new year with friends from England who had come to see me on their way to other places in India. It was extremely sad to see them go and reminded me one of the reasons why I have been so home sick at various points on this trip. I also spent much time with Anders, the biker from Denmark who we have met at various points and who made it down to Goa just in time to spend Christmas here.

Bud and Ollie enjoying their meals at Ma-Rita's on Palolem beach

New Years Eve on Palolem beach - Penny on the left, John, Sarah and me

It feels like we have reached the half way point in this trip and now a number of issues need to be addressed. I suppose this is the perfect place to address them; in a calm and collective way and this is also a good excuse to stay here for what seems like excessive period of time. The issues as I see them are:

Peter’s intensions for the rest of the trip. He left for England on 23rd December and proposed to his girlfriend, Miriam. Congratulations are in order because she accepted (!!) and Peter returned here two days ago. I have no idea what he is planning to do, and I am not sure whether he does either. Before he left he was talking about going home to be with Miriam and not continuing on to Australia. My suspicions that he will do this have been aroused further when I spotted on the floor of his hut the Lonely Planet guides for Iran and Pakistan and I realised from this that one option for him is to travel overland back home. I think he needs time to decide what is right for him, as do I, but I think there is a possibility that we will not be traveling on together. I do however sincerely hope we do.

Peter returns...

The next issue is my bike which has serious oil leak that must be fixed before I carry on. Oil is leaking from what is called the rear axle final drive and if I continue with this problem I risk ruining the gear-box. It appears that the problem is due to a faulty seal and is probably a manufacturers problem with the bike. BMW in the UK have been extremely unhelpful and say we need to replace the entire unit (900 GBP) and that they need the old unit back before they would consider this as a warranty issue. They also don’t have the unit in stock in either the UK or Germany and can’t say how long it would take to get it. They also say that to do the work we need a special tool that they are unable to show us. However, Anders who is a self taught mechanic, has actually managed to take the whole unit off the bike, have the tool made locally and thinks the problem can be fixed by simply replacing the seal which has ordered from a friend who knows someone at BMW in Switzerland. So it looks like we are getting there with this problem and I must say a massive “thank you” for all Anders’s help with this.

Anders talking off the rear axle final drive. The special tool he had made is in his hand. The axle is still on the bike at this point.

Lastly, the route that we are going to take it a big consideration. Where do we go from here? I have already mentioned that Peter is considering going home and I suppose that is a realistic possibility for me too. Although it is extremely cheap to live here in India, shipping costs and petrol are expensive and I am running out of the money that I put aside for the trip. So returning to England, either riding the bike or shipping it back, is a possibility.
If one or both of us were to carry on toward Australia the most ambitious route would be to go to Nepal and then cross back into China. In China we would go cross province to the border with Laos. This is meant to be very difficult, mainly due to the logistics, and I am not too sure if many people have ever done this on a motorbike. From Laos the journey would then take us down in Thailand and then Indonesia where we would island hop until we could find a boat to take us to Australia. Anders is keen to do this and he has a contact in China who can help to organize this trip – so one option would be to go with him. There is also a possibility that he can find other people who want to do the same trip and we could travel in a group to keep the cost down.
Probably the least ambitious plan would be to do something like ride to Madras (in the south of India), put the bike on a boat to Thailand, then ride to Singapore and put the bike on a boat from there to Australia. Perhaps ride across Australia and then come home.

There are many factors to consider, but something like a plan will come together in the next month, during which time I may take a train and explore Kerela and Mumbai while I wait for spare parts to arrive for the bike.

Francis, Carole, me and Dad having lunch on Patnam beach.

My father, brother and his girlfriend all came out on New Year’s day and are here until the 15th January. It is wonderful to see them and they have brought something to me here that I find it difficult to put into words so I am not going to even try. My father has rented a house in Patnam and I am currently staying in a little room attached to the front of that house. We are using the front of the building to repair the bikes and we are using a spare room to lay out the luggage, the tools and spare parts. We all do our own thing, but we meet as and when. Francis is doing a yoga course, Carole seems to be getting into alternative medicine and writes her diary and Dad reads, swims and does a lot of walking. They all say that they don’t want to leave and are having a great time. Goa is a transient place, where people come for a short time have fun, make bonds and leave. It is hardest when those closest to you leave a place like this. I will leave too one day!

Merry Christmas from Palolem Beach, Goa, India - 14,791 miles from London

2006-12-19T08:12:00.000Z

Ho, ho, ho! A very happy Christmas to one and all! This cheesy photo was taken in June, many thousands of miles back. The Santa Claus pictured is not one of the fakes that you see in shopping centres in the UK, but the real guy. He lives in Rovaniemi, Finland on the dividing line of the Arctic Circle. He seemed like a jolly nice chap.

Entry by Tom (photo by one of Santa's little helpers)

Palolem Beach, Goa, India - 14,791 miles from London

2006-12-10T04:35:00.000Z

Palolem Beach in Goa - our home for the next couple of months

After five months on the road, having ridden through sixteen countries and covered over fourteen and a half thousand miles we can finally give ourselves a bit of a rest as we have reached Goa and are planning on staying here for both Christmas and New Year until sometime in January.Since we left Agra we have been back to Delhi to pick up the bikes and from there we have ridden south stopping at Jaipur, the tiger park at Ranthambore, the abandoned city of Mandu, the ancient Buddhist caves at Ajanta, Aurangabad famous for it's "Baby Taj Mahal" and a handful of other places en route with little in the way of mainstream tourist sites but with sufficient numbers of friendly local people and glimpses of normal Indian life to have made the journey memorable, albeit, given the distance we have travelled, very tiring.

The outside of the The Hawa Mahal at Jaipur - built to allow aristocratic women the chance to stare at the masses and the every day life of Jaipur without being seen themselves

One of the three tigers we saw at Ranthambore Tiger Park

The peaceful long abandoned ruins at Mandu

Tom forcibly meeting and greeting locals at Dhule after we msitakenly made a brief stop in the centre of town - both Tom and the bikes are in the photo if you look hard enough!

A picture (completely failing to do justice) of the amazing cave sculptures inside the caves at Ajanta

The Baby Taj Mahal at Aurangabad

Tom and Peter on the final, unexpectedly incredibly difficult to ride, stretch of road before we arrived in Goa

Written by Peter

Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India

2006-11-24T10:40:00.000Z

A camal stands across theYamuna river from the Taj Mahal.
(underlined text is a hyper-link to Wikipedia)

The Taj Mahal - one of the classic views of the monument which was built as a mausoleum for the favourite wife of the Mughal Emperor Shāh Jahān. We arrived at 6am to see the sun rise and to get some pictures before the crowds built up.

Us outside the Taj Mahal. Have you seen enough picture of it yet?!

To see more pictures click here to go to our Flickr photo gallery

Whilst in Agra, as well as the Taj Mahal, we visited a number of the other famous sites including Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb, which is sometimes called the baby Taj, Agra Fort (which we saw from the outside only) and we took a trip out to Fatehpur Sikri (pictured) which is a whole town built by the Mughal emperor Akbar only to be abandoned shortly after completion due to a lack of water in the area!

We traveled to Agra by train with Laurent and Anders. Laurent is pictured here outside Fatelpur Sikri petting puppies (a favourite past-time of his - he also pets sacred cows and goats). We will be leaving Laurent and Anders behind in Delhi as they need to wait for parts and repairs to be performed on their bikes. We hope to see them again in the south of the country over the Christmas period.

Entry by Tom

Delhi, India - 13,188 miles from London

2006-11-20T08:40:00.000Z

Our Indian mobile numbers: Peter: +91 99 15363918 ; Tom: +91 99 15363922

A monk spins the prayer wheels in Mcloed Ganj, India, the home of the 14th Dali Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

To see more pictures click here to go to our Flickr photo gallery

We crossed into India after spending a four days in Lahore, the city known as the cultural capital of Pakistan. As well as visiting the usual tourist sites and the India / Pakistan border closing ceremony we were privileged to go to a Sufi spiritual event where drummers played hypnotically until 2am, huge amounts of dope was smoked and Sufi dancers spun around to the tribal sounding beat. Even though we smoked no dope, the whole thing was pretty mesmerising and a facinating insight into the cultural side of this strain of the muslim religion.

Crossing into India we were blatantly aware that we were joining the tourist trail after many months off it. I personally welcomed this change finding it comforting to be around Westerners and English speaking Indians after so long in places where the language barrier had meant that we were often in a state of confusion about what was going on around us. Also, not only were we crossing over into the largest democracy in the world, we were entering the first democracy that we had been in since Russia (back in August). In the border town of Amritsar we joined hundreds of tourists and thousands of Sikhs who were walking around the Golden Temple. Entrance to the temple and the museum is totally free and, if you are hungry, we discovered that you can eat there for free too! After a day in Amristar we made our way up to Mcloed Ganj in the foothills of the Himalayas. The town proved to be quite a cool tourist hang out with lots of vegetarian cafes, places offering yoga and Tibetan cookery courses and a handful of Dennis Hopper hippy types wondering around in bare feet. It is of course the home of the Dali Lama who we saw very briefly when he passed us in a car.

A Sikh man bathing in the pool which surrounds The Goldern Temple in Amritsar, India

We were joined in Mcloed Ganj by two bikers, Laurent from Switzerland and Anders from Denmark. We had first met them in Almaty, Kazakhstan and then again at the camp site in Islamabad where Anders had kindly helped to fix my brakes and side boxes after the accident I had on the Karakorum Highway. We decided to ride together for a while, and this was to be the first time on the trip where we had traveled with anyone else. We set off from Mcloed Ganj and headed for Kalka where we planned to get the narrow gauge train up the steep climb to Shimla, a hill station originally established by the British. We estimated the ride to Kalka would only take a day, but as a result of slow road which twisted through the hillsides we had to break the journey halfway and continue the next day.

Robin, a round the world cyclist, getting ready to clear customs at the Pakistan / India border.

We arrived in Kalka on the afternoon on the second day and spent much of that afternoon buying tickets for the train, an unbelievably arduous process. We bordered the train at 5.30 am the following morning and made the 5 hour 90 km ascent. It was raining in Shimla and due to the altitude we found ourselves wandering around the main shopping street looking at the British architecture in the clouds. If the clouds had been sea mist it would have been just like a wet weekend in Scarborough up there, made even more surreal by the presence of monkeys and large numbers of Indians. After a very expensive gin and tonic (incidentally we hadn't had a drink for quite a few weeks due to the ban on alcohol in Pakistan) at a very impressive hotel, we boarded the train for the 5 hour decent. Yesterday morning we left Kalka and made the surprisingly easy ride to Delhi where we pitched up at a very cheap guest house (about two pounds a night) with prison cell like rooms, but a nice atmosphere and cricket constantly showing on the television. My first impressions of Delhi are that it much less polluted than I had expected and much more developed and ordered with an impressive metro system which is in the process of being extending to the suburbs. I think I was expecting Delhi to be more like Lahore, but these are boom times in India and things seem to be very different here compared to Pakistan.

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A stripped down truck at a truck painting yard in Rawaipindi (the city adjoining Islamabad), Pakistan. Trucks (usually old Bedford trucks) in Pakistan are very elaborately decorated inside and out with such things as brightly painted murals, coloured lights, clinking chains and spinning flowers. The cab doors are even replaced with hand crafted wooden doors.

Chinese rally drivers taking pictures of the bike with over-sized cameras outside Indian customs on the Pakistan / India border. We had seen the same rally drivers in Kashgar, China.

Stirring up the crowds at the India / Pakistan border closing ceremony.

The entrance to Lahore Fort, from inside the complex.

A "river" in Lahore, Pakistan, a very dirty and polluted city.

Laurent (left) and Anders (right) at the campsite in Islamabad. Anders's bike, which he was repairing at the time, is pictured.

A polite notice outside KFC in Lahore, where incidentally all the staff are deaf and you have to order using a "point it" menu.

Written by Tom

Islamabad, Pakistan - 12,415 miles from London

2006-11-01T11:58:00.000Z

A view from the Karakoram Highway which the Karakorum, Hindu Cush and Himalaya mountain ranges all cross at various points

Our journey from Kashgar in China to Pakistan's capital Islamabad along the Karakoram Highway was a five day ride through some of the most amazing scenery we have seen so far. We reached the Chinese/Pakistani border with relative ease: the Chinese part of the Karakoram Highway was a superb new road and our Chinese guide (a Chinese law requirement!) meant that we had no problems with the Mandarin only road signs.

A view from China of the mountain range over which the Kunjerab Pass crosses

The actual border is the 4665 metre Kunjerab Pass which we had heard was the highest road pass in the world, although we have since been corrected in this misassumption the highest road pass being on one of the roads to Lhasa. We had been expecting to face problems with snow on the road given the time of year we were travelling the Karakoram Highway, but up until the border we had been pleasantly surprised by the fact that the roads were snow free and easy to ride. However, when we got to the Pakistani border itself the situation immediately changed and we were greeted by a cheery Pakistani policeman who told us that the snow covered road we could see stretching way out in front of us only lasted for five kilometres (or so, maybe, perhaps, possibly). Tom, in particular, found the first kilometre of this road very tough and owing to his bike's road tyres he was having to work very hard keeping his bike from slipping everytime he tried to move. That said, no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't help his bike falling periodically and since I had to help him pick up his bike (our bikes are not light!) everytime it fell this made our progress very stop/start.

Tom has trouble with the snow just after we have crossed the Kunjerab Pass

Things suddenly got worse for us when, on one of the occasions I had been helping Tom with his bike, I remembered I had stupidly left my ignition on. Normally this would not have been a problem, but since it was so cold on the pass I had my heated grips on and when I got back to my bike I found that this had drained the battery to the extent that my bike wouldn't start. Repeated attempts at trying to bump start my bike failed and quickly noting that this road was not the busiest in the world (two cars passed us in an hour and a half) we decided to head down the mountain to get out of the snow line hoping we would be more likely to get some sort of help there.

Minutes before I find I have a flat battery I was contemplating how far we have to ride to get to the Pakistani customs post at Sost (also the first settlement we were going to get to Pakistan)

After six hours of alternately pushing (oddly we quite often found ourselves having push my bike downhill - work that one out if you can because I have no idea why that was!), trying to bump start and freewheeling the bike we found ourselves at a small police checkpost a mere fifteen kilometres from the Kunjerab Pass. We were exahusted and we are both eternally grateful to the fantastic guys at there who gave us a place next to their roaring coal stove, hot, sweet tea, bread and a bed each for the night. As an aside we passed this, our first night in Paksitan, as illegal immigrants as we had made so little progress that we had not even made it to the Pakistani customs post way down the valley in Sost.

The morning after the night before Tom poses with some of the the police (and a random Chinese road engineer) who put us up for the night after we'd finally pushed my bike out of the snow line and down the mountain

The next morning we managed to get my bike started after Tom came up with the great idea of using copper wire to drip charge the battery in my bike. Our initial problem of where to get copper wire four and a half thousand metres up a mountain was quickly solved by one of the policemen who cut a section of cable out of some nearby telephone wires handily running right next to the police hut. It later emerged that the wires had come down in a storm a while ago and so we weren't actually cutting off all means of communications between the police hut and the outside world! Leaving the police post we carried on down the Karakoram Highway reaching Sost and the Palistani customs post just before lunch. The customs were a breeze and, once we had found someone not having tea or taking an early lunch who was able to stamp us into the country, we carried on our way with no-one seeming to care that we had been illegally there for a day already.

Some of the amazing secenery we saw from the Karakoram Highway

From Sost we spent three days travelling down the Karakoram Highway stopping at the picturesque town of Karimabad with its abandoned and crumbling fort looming high in the hills, the busy but otherwise uninteresting town of Giligit, the small town of Besham in the heart of Pakistan's infamous North West Frontier Province an area famous for fiercely independent tribes, colonial era intrigue and, in the modern day, for rumours of hidden Taliban strongholds and finally toward the end of the Karakoram Highway the British built hill station of Abbotabad. The only hiccup on the only journey was when Tom hit a pretty large pot hole at forty and took to the skies for five or six feet; the resulting crash left him a bit battered and with brakes that were not fully functioning. Thanfully he could still continue and now we are in Islamabad we will try and sort the problem out and get the brakes back to normal before we tempt fate any further and continue.

Besham first thing in the morning - we'd been up early looking for the gun shop we had been told was in town, but at that time of the day we only found food, the gun shop wasn't open until later

A modified Bedford lorry with a flat tyre

It was around Abbotabad and on the road from there to Paksitan's purpose built capital of Islamabad that we had our first taste of just how bad we can expect riding the bikes to be in India. Overtaking (and undertaking!) at every opportunity (blind bends or not), tailgating, total disregard for any rules of the road and ancient British built Bedford lorries painted lurid colours and sporting a whole range of decorations, stickers and tassles, but belching black diesel fumes and causing huge tailbacks all give a taste of the bustle, energy and simple downright craziness of the Indian subcontinent.

Written by Peter

Children on their way to school in Besham

Kashgar, China - 11,553 miles from London

2006-10-24T13:57:00.000+01:00

Tom's bike with a Chinese number plate complementing the Chinese driving licence and travel permit - both of which he also has to have in order to be able to drive in China and which are currently sitting in his wallet (not pictured)

We are now at Kashgar in China's western Xinjiang province after an exhausting day dealing with both the Krgyz and then the Chinese customs posts at the isolated (but suprisingly busy) Irkeshtam Pass. Tom had a few problems with altitude sickness before the border crossing but he did claim to have seen a shooting star during the night so that's OK then. After an unprecedented amount of delay at the Krgyz customs post (at every other Krgyz border we have crossed we have pretty much been waved through) we then hit massive delays at the Chinese border - mainly caused by us arriving just as they started their two hour lunch break. Having then explained to the efficient Chinese officials at the border that Tom's plaster of Paris touristy souvenir from Samarkand was not actually cocaine we then rode to Kashgar and arrived late last night. We will leave here on Thursday and take the Karakoram Highway to Pakistan where en-route we will cross the Kunjerab Pass which, at just less than 5000 metres, is the highest road pass in the world.

Tom plays a bit of pool in Kashgar's main square with his loyal fans rooting for him to sink the next ball and sweep to victory

The strains of the Chinese customs are too much for Peter

Our hotel in Kashgar - apparantly the former British consulate

Written by Peter

Osh, Kyrgyzstan (again) - 11,232 miles from London

2006-10-21T09:26:00.000+01:00

Having traveled through Tajikistan (see last entry) and Uzbekistan we are back in Osh preparing to make the crossing into China on Monday morning that will mark the end of our time in the Stans. Below are some pictures from Uzbekistan and a few from Osh.
To see more pictures click here to go to our Flickr photo gallery

The Registan Samarkand, Uzbekistan

The dome of a Medressa, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

"Loads of money" - not really, this is a US$100 worth of Uzbek currency (the Sum) which has clearly been subjected to serious inflation

The Abul Aziz Khan Medressa, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Eric and Rachel, who we hung out with in Uzbekistan, playing pool (badly - as were we!) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Trademark and copyright infringements galore at McDonalds, in Osh Bazaar, Kyrgyzstan

A woman, a child and some animal heads at the Osh Bazaar, Kyrgyzstan

Tom and Eric. A different Eric to the one we met in Uzbekistan. This Eric is a biker riding from Japan to Denmark. We met him in Osh after months of correspondence and the checking of each other's blogs. We wish him well, particularly with the journey from Osh to the Tajik border which, from all accounts, does not sound like anything resembling a road!

Entry put together by Tom

Osh, Krgyzstan to Dushanbe, Tajikistan (10,111 miles from London)

2006-10-05T13:01:00.000+01:00

We are in Dushanbe at the moment which is the European looking and feeling capital of Tajikistan, the third of the "stans" we have been too so far. After an arduous ride from Osh in Kyrgyzstan we reached the border town of Sary-Tash in Kyrgyzstan where the road splits to take you either south to the Kyrgyz/Tajik border crossing at the Kzyl-Art Pass or east to the Kyrgyz/Chinese border crossing at the Irkeshtam Pass.

The road from Osh to Sary-Tash

Early the next morning a short ride from Sary-Tash took us to the Kyrgyz border crossing (some ten to twelve miles before the Tajik border crossing) and we passed through into what was, I suppose, technically no-man's land between the two border posts. Almost immediately the semi-tarmac'd road we had been riding on until then vanished and was replaced with a rocky track and just as we had got the hang of these conditions the road then started the very steep climb to the 4282 metre Kzyl-Art Pass and the surface again changed, but this time to a mixture of sand and loose mud which made for an even harder ride. When we eventually crossed the Tajik border we were filled with a real sense of fear that the rest of our ride to the first significant town in Tajikistan (Murgab) would be similarly difficult; however, our fears were allayed when the road almost immediately turned to smooth tarmac and we set a good pace from the border crossing to Lake Kara-Kul. Lake Kara-Kul, formed over ten million years ago by a meteorite, is a huge and seemingly lifeless lake set at just less than 400metres. Karakul, the village on the shores of the lake, supports a small community although given that the lake has, from what I have heard, no marine life and I could see no signs of farming or other means of support I cannot see why anyone would or indeed could live there.
Passing Lake Kara-Kul we followed, at times no more than a few feet away, the Chinese border across the plateau of the Pamir mountain range (called Bam-i-Dunya or The Roof of the World by the locals) at something like 3500 - 400 metres until, when we stopped for a break after a couple of hour or so, we could see ahead of us the road climbing higher to join the 4655 metres high and snow covered Ak-Baital Pass.

Tom's bike takes a fall in the snow on the Ak-Baital Pass

The snow on this pass caused havoc with our bikes and both of us had numerous close calls as the bikes failed to grip on the snow. Our troubles culminated in Tom having a bad fall when his road tyres completely failed to grip on the snow and he was flipped off though luckily not hurting himself in the fall. Aside from a slight dent to one of his panniers his bike was similarly OK and we tentatively continued to Murgab making good time and arriving there in the late afternoon as the roads improved dramatically when we came down from the pass.

The skull of something that had big horns and a little boy in Murgab

Murgab is a slightly larger settlement than Karakul but still shows few signs of being able to fully support the community and it is for that reason that foreign aid agencies are present in the town and are trying to build tourist programmes in order that the residents can supplement their meagre incomes by having a structured and comprehensive tourist industry available. We saw visible signs of this when we were found by one of these aid agencies (an NGO called ACTED) a homestay with a local family and given assistance in registering our visas and the GBAO permit we need in order to travel the Pamir Highway.

The Pamir plateau surrounded the mountains of the Pamir range on the road to Khorog

Leaving Murgab the next day we followed the Chinese border further south before the road turned west and we headed across the Pamir plateau to the region’s capital Khorog. We reached Khorog late in the day and spent a couple of days in the town seeing the sights (a Botanical Garden, a bazaar and a small museum) before we headed to the hot springs of Garam Chasma. Khorog is right next to Afghanistan and as we followed the Afghan border south to Garam Chasma we could see all along the way signs of an increased police and military presence. When we had been on the Pamir Highway we had already seen signs of a military presence with regular checkpoints along the way, but near Afghanistan the police presence was even more intense. I understand that this is primarily because of the sheer amount of drugs smuggled over the border into Tajikistan and from here into the other CIS states and then Russia. Given the porous nature of the Afghan/Tajik border the Russian authorities are keen to try to clamp down on the smuggling and to this end have provided the Tajik authorities with so much police and military assistance that the Russians feel that this is more of a Russian rather than a Tajik border. We left Khorog after spending a relaxing day at the hot springs with a Tajik policeman who should have been on duty stopping drug smugglers, but instead preferred to hitch a ride on our bikes and have a soak in the springs and an elderly man who after talking to us for an hour or so showed us the real reason he was at the springs which was a well advanced gangrenous thumb he was sure could be healed by regular exposure to the healing waters.

The healing waters of Garam Chasma, the Tajik policeman and the man with the dodgy thumb

The journey from Khorog to Dushanbe was, according to the map, a mere three hundred miles (or if we took the longer all season route just short of four hundred miles); it was therefore with a degree of arrogance that we now know was misplaced we left Khorog early on the Sunday morning intending on making Dushanbe that evening. By the end of that evening we had covered one hundred and fifty miles and were shattered. The road had wound through the mountains following the Panj River which marks the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The narrowness of the road and the fact that for the most it consisted of very badly maintained tarmac meant that when we arrived in Kala-i-Khumb at three we knew we were never going to make Dushanbe before dark and so we reluctantly stopped for the night there

The road from Khorog to Kala-i-Khumb with Afghanistan on the other side of the River Panj

Despite the fact that the journey from Khorog had been so bad, we still were somewhat surprised when everyone we spoke to in Kala-i-Khumb gave us an estimate of somewhere between eight to ten hours for the rest of the journey to Dushanbe (one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty miles depending on which route we took) and so when we left Kala-i-Khumb at dawn the next morning we had hopes of getting to Dushanbe by early afternoon. We had decided to take the all season route as the summer route took us high into the mountains and we couldn’t face more snow and all was going well as we met excellent, wide and fast roads and next to no traffic for an hour or so.

Both our bikes take a fall on the "road" from Kala-i-Khumb to Dushanbe, but luckily the landmines were elsewhere

Then out of the blue this road turned into a three foot wide track which for the next five hours took us through rivers, along dry river beds, over rickety bridges and across terrain made up of everything from sand, gravel, small stones and big boulders.

The spectacular lake formed by the Nurek Dam not far from Dushanbe

Arriving at Dushanbe about ten hours later we were still amazed that the all weather main road from Khorog to Dushanbe could be quite as bad as it was and we are conscious that our bikes should probably have a check before we go any further; Tom’s panniers in particular suffered badly from a couple of falls he had and so over the next few days we will have to try our hand at a bit of DIY panel beating. Watch this space for whether we succeed with this or not!

Written by Peter

Osh, Kyrgyzstan - 9193 miles from London

2006-09-26T09:09:00.000+01:00

Coincidentally, as I wrote about the GPS in the last blog entry, a child stole it from the table I was working at in the internet cafe. The GPS is now the subject of yet another insurance claim and I have put up posters offering a reward of US$30 for its return.

Osh, Kyrgyzstan - 9193 miles from London

2006-09-25T05:38:00.000+01:00

We had hoped to make it to Sary Tash last night so that we could make the crossing into Tajikistan this morning, but the road to Sary Tash, which showed as 90 miles on the GPS from where we camped the night before, actually turned out to be more like 300 miles through winding mountain passes. Unfortunately the GPS no longer recognises roads and always plots our routes "as the crow flies" which makes for interesting distance estimations which we always need to check against the paper maps that Peter is carrying. It also didn't help that at one point, due to a complete lack of sign posting, we took a wrong turning and ended up at the Uzbekistan border and, somewhat confused, had to turn back. So, with night falling, we arrived in Osh, an historic Silk Road city and Kyrgyzstan's second largest, bustling with bazaars and street life but with no street lights, not even on the two main roads! Osh lies near the borders with China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and whilst in Kyrgyzstan has a mainly Uzbek population, giving the city more of an Arabic feel than other places we have visited.

The aid agency vehicles belonging to the UN and Save the Children that I saw in Bishkek make more sense after the drive yesterday. Whilst not an unhappy looking place, this region is certainly poor and the people in the main are clearly dependant on subsistence farming. Passing through breathtaking countryside, we had to stop every half mile or so to negotiate shepherds with their cattle which were often drifting across the road. All the children seem to wave or throw stones at us now which makes for an interesting riding style.

We have raced around Kyrgyzstan, covering nearly 1000 miles in the last five days. It's been a fascinating experience. We have seen Lake Issyk-Kul in the east of the country (the second largest alpine lake in the world), stayed in a yurt camp (yurts are the tent like homes of the nomadic Kyrgs), camped in the mountains and visited a surreal soviet sanatorium which was falling apart against the backdrop of stunning mountain scenery.

The sanatorium and the pool which apparantly contains healing radioactive waters!

Partly as a result of waiting for tires in Almaty and a part for Peter's bike in Bishkek, we are a week behind schedule and we must cross into Tajikistan tomorrow to stay on the bearable side of the weather. Once across the border, we will be in the Pamir mountains and riding the Pamir highway. The climb up to the 4500 metre plateau is meant to be fairly difficult and we are aware that we are probably about to undertake the most challenging riding so far. It is at this point that we regret our lack of any off-road training! We will be skirting the Afghan and Chinese borders on a route that is only taken by 100 or so tourists every year, but this mountain pass is said to one of the most beautiful in the world.

The area is also said to be very poor and lacking in even basic facilities in parts. Needless to say, we will be out of contact for between ten days to two weeks. We will put another entry on the site when we reach either Dushanbe (in Tajikistan) or Tashkent (in Uzbekistan). There has been a change in our plans due to travel restrictions imposed in Turkmenistan. When we are in Tashkent we will be applying for another visa for Kyrgyzstan and a visa for China. With the help of a travel agent in China we hope to avoid Turkmenistan and instead travel the Karakoram Highway through China into Pakistan.

Written by Tom

The Ala-Archa Canyon (20 miles outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan)

2006-09-18T07:00:00.000+01:00

Having lunch by the river on the way up.
In our hostel in Bishkek we met Dean, who was writing the Kyrgyzstan update for the Lonely Planet, and Liron who was traveling after having completed his national service in Israel. They had invited us to do a 20 mile walk which they had been told about by Itay, Liron's traveling companion. He described it as an easy trek (which he had done a without Liron the week before) along a plateau to an abandoned ski lodge where we could spend the night and in the morning make the jouney back. Having not really done any trekking since the walk to Nordkapp (in Norway) and having just spent nearly four weeks in central Asian cities it sounded like just what we needed. So early on a Sunday morning, with our ruck-sacks packed with food and sleeping bags, we boarded the local bus to Osh Bazaar. At the Bazaar we bargained with taxi drivers and for 400 Som (about six pounds) we took a taxi the 20 miles into the national park where the Ala-Altra canyon lies. The canyon begins at 2200 metres, higher than most ski resorts that I have been to but the height wasn't noticeable as the weather was fine, if not a little overcast. We set off following the river which was flowing fast from the top of the mountain and the many streams joining it along the way. Having only very basic instructions from Itay and the listing in The Lonely Planet (Dean said it was unlikely that the previous writer had actually done the walk) we immediately took a wrong turning going over the first bridge that we found. Had we crossed the second bridge we wouldn't have found ourselves battling through undergrowth and rock climbing for 1.5 miles. Emerging from this experience at the second bridge with scratches all over our arms and looking like we'd been involved in failed suicide attempts we found the walk pleasant and easy going for the next 3 miles or so. Through some fairly stunning countryside, I walked and talked with Dean while Peter did the same with Liron a little further ahead.

Peter and I on the second bridge
We found that we needed to cross the river again to continue along the canyon. Unfortunately the bridge that we needed was down and so, whilst considering the problem, we took 30 minutes for lunch by the side of the river. The problem with crossing the river without the bridge was that the water was fairly deep, fast moving and cold. There were rocks dotted around but not enough it seemed to form a path for us to get over. If we put our feet in the water for more than 30 seconds they turned blue and if we tried to stand where the water was too deep we would be knocked over by the current. What was needed was the courage to jump over parts of the river and to wade quickly through other parts. Minutes after lunch Dean showed such courage and stood triumphantly on the other side. The other three of us were more cowardly and looked in vein up and down the river for a path of stones that just wasn't there. 45 minutes later Liron somehow got over, but by then I'd climbed back down the canyon quite some distance, deluded that the river got narrower some way off. Peter, torn between going with Liron or with me, had made the wrong choice and followed me. I'd fallen for the common trap of not considering properly that things further away look smaller, and the reality of the situation turned out to be that the river was the same width and the same difficulty to cross further down. This wasted a considerable amount of the afternoon and by the time Peter and I got back up to where Liron and Dean had crossed if we hadn't found a plank of wood which we used get us most of the way across I think we would have turned back.

An hour and a half later, having all made it across, it was onwards and upwards, but now it was starting to rain. We passed a derelict building outside of which horses were grazing on a flat patch of grass. It was getting cold and our lack of coats and gloves was becoming a problem. The climb was also quite steep at times. It was necessary to do some rock climbing and at one point as I remember there was an almost vertical ascent to a point above an abandoned bulldoser. Peter and Liron had gone on ahead and I was lagging behind badly because my thighs were aching from the climbing. Dean was in the middle, stopping periodically to let me catch up. It was also becoming increasing difficult to breath normally and I was finding it necessary to stop more and more often to catch my breath and give my legs a rest. The rain was starting to turn to snow and visibility was decreasing. Dean's calmness had kept me calm because I couldn't believe that we would be getting ourselves into a perilous situation with this well traveled Lonely Planet writer, but as the snow became heavier, the night came closer and there was still no sign of Peter and Liron who Dean suspected had gone the wrong way I sensed panic in Dean's voice as told me that I had to hurry. We carried on for another 30 or so minutes in what had now become a snow storm. The visibility briefly improved and we were very relieved to see Liron and Peter on a path below us coming in our direction. We climbed down to the path but the news was not good. They had walked quite a distance ahead of us and hadn't seen the ski lodge and the question now was what we should do. We guessed that we had about 45 minutes of light left and if we couldn't find the lodge there was no way that we would survive the night in the open without even a pair of gloves between us. We decided to carry on for 30 minutes and if we didn't find the lodge we would have to head down in the dark to the derelict building where we had seen with the horses grazing outside and try to make camp there with whatever we could find. In the snow, in the dark and with all the climbing we would need to do we knew that this wasn't safe and could take quite a few hours if we were in fact able to do it at all. So we pushed on. I checked my GPS and we had climbed 1300 metres and the reason for my dizziness was the fact that we were at an altitude of 3500 metres. I was now walking with Liron and starting to laugh a little uncontrollably about our situation when Liron said he thought he could see something in the distance which could be the lodge. Was it some sort of snowy mirage I thought. Liron went ahead to investigate when Dean shouted from ahead that he had definitely seen it. With only about 20 minutes of light left I limped the last 100 metres to safety.

The illusive ski-lodge in the morning
Inside the lodge, which was full of an assortment of rubbish from previous expeditions, we immediately got into our sleeping bags and Liron lit the camping stove. We were freezing and Dean and I both had some symptoms of altitude sickness. We did however settle down after some soup and some pasta, much talk of how badly the night could have ended, how stupid we had been do that walk so ill equiped and how Itay was going to get a piece of our minds when we got back.

We had feared that we might have been snowed in if the snow had continued to fall at the same rate as it was falling when we had arrived. We were however pleasantly surprised when we awoke to find that only a couple of inches had settled.We were out of the lodge by 8am and after a couple of Ibuprofen my headache from the altitude was gone in 20 minutes and we were making the decent in beautiful sunshine. The walk down was extremely easy by comparison with the ascent the day before. We crossed the river (which was running much lower) in 5 instead of 90 minutes and once we were off the snowy peak we found ourselves walking in tee-shirt weather through countryside with colours much more vibrant than the day before due to the sunlight and among butterflies dancing around us.

Walking down

Walking down

We had lunch by the river near to where we started the walk the day before. We all agreed that we didn't regret having done this trek but that in retrospect it had been a reckless thing to do. Dean said that he would revise the Lonely Planet entry to take account of our experiences, and if nothing more memorable happened to him during his time in Kyrgyzstan he would include this story in his personal profile at the start of the book. We all agreed that Itay, for his misdescription of the walk, was going to get it when we got back to the hostel, but when we eventually got back none of us had the energy to give it to him and so we settled for showing him the pictures and telling him the story instead.

Dean (left); Liron (right)

Luckily, not any of us...

Written by Tom.

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan - 8233 miles from London

2006-09-14T10:46:00.000+01:00

We are in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. We will put a Kyrg entry up shortly, but in the meantime below are some pictures from Almaty, Kazakhstan where we spent three and a half weeks whilst we were sorting out logistical and mechanical issues and waiting for our Kyrg visas to start.
Our Kazakh phone numbers no longer work, but we have new Kyrg SIM cards. Our numbers are:
Peter: 00 996 502 453957
Tom: 00 996 502 453987

Kids on my bike outside the hostel, Almaty

Our old tires. From left to right - my back tire (now being carried as a spare); Peter's back tire (notice how much more Peter's tire has worn - big lad and heavy bike!); Peter's front tire which was repaired in Perm; my front tire; the front tire Peter had sent from BMW Moscow to Perm (now being carried as a spare); a crap back tire that we bought second-hand in Almaty which looked ok but turned out to be 12 years old and screamed on the road because the rubber was so tight and dry.

Boris, the mechanic we watched work meticulously on our bikes for two days. Here he is balancing one of the wheels.

The bikes in Boris's workshop having the tires changed.

Having a drink with David Berkhof of Stantours who has been so helpful with the planning of this trip.

Fernando, a Spanish biker who has ridden from London but decided to live in Almaty for six months (see Nomad Podcast - link on right side of this page in the travel blogs section) and Reana.

Soviet housing block, Almaty

Public swimming pool.

Man washing a puppy in a bucket at the first motorbike garage that we went to.

Sunset over Almaty

More photos on Flickr (for link see site content on the right of this page).

Entry by Tom.

Remember this? Now we are famous in Kazakhstan too...

2006-09-13T07:05:00.000+01:00

Now we are famous in Kazakhstan too! In a rare newspaper interview, we told the Pavalodar Versia all about the trip. The text is below. We haven't a clue what it says so a translation would be gratefully received.

Из Англии в Австралию за 18 месяцев –
это возможно?
На самолете это можно сделать за 18 часов, но вот на мотоцикле…
Юлия ЛЕДАК

Не выходят из моды такие отчаянные человеческие поступки, как длительные путешествия на велосипедах, автомобилях, мотобайках, яхтах и плотах. Хочется повидать мир, пообщаться с людьми разных стран. Но все больше путешественников пытаются сделать свой путь более экстремальным, например, отправиться на другой конец света, совершенно не зная иностранных языков.

Практически кругосветное путешествие англичан Тома Хоновича и Питера Колея началось больше 50 дней назад в Лондоне. Первым городом Казахстана, в который они въехали на своих железных конях – мотоциклах «ВМW», оснащенных системой навигации GPS, был Павлодар (от Лондона до нашего города – 7000 миль или 11270 километров). Здесь мы и встретились с этими отчаянными путешественниками. Они практически не знают русского языка, хотя большая часть их пути прошла по русскоязычным странам. Вот уж, действительно, экстремалы эти англичане, а еще говорят, что в Лондоне живут домоседы. Хотя, помнится один из героев приключенческого романа Жюля Верна «Вокруг света за 80 дней» мистер Фогт, был родом из Англии.
Мой английский также не отличался особой быстротой и сообразительностью, однако наша встреча случилась так внезапно, не было времени приглашать переводчика, поэтому пришлось объясняться на пальцах.
Сразу возник первый вопрос: «Почему мотоциклы, – почему не комфортабельная машина или другие виды транспорта, самолет и поезд, например?». Ребята, поморщившись, ответили, что мотоциклы для них в самый раз.
- Едешь и чувствуешь воздух, солнце, дождь, можешь вертеть головой на 180 градусов и обозревать все, что проносится мимо тебя.
На родине Том и Питер работают адвокатами, одному из них 36 лет, другому 29 – не такой уж бесшабашный возраст. Общаются они три года, вместе путешествовали по Испании. Эту же грандиозную поездку они планировали полтора года, сами откладывали деньги, не надеясь на помощь спонсоров.
Стартовали ребята из Англии, далее двигаясь по определенному маршруту, согласно утвержденному графику, останавливаясь в каждой стране только на один день: Франция (город Калаис), Бельгия (порт Джент), Нидерланды, Швеция, Норвегия (город Осло) и Финляндия. На этом Европа, по которой Том и Питер колесили не раз, закончилась. Первым городом России, страны, где они никогда не были, но очень много слышали о гостеприимстве и особом образе жизни русских, был Выборг. Этот небольшой городок, граничащий с Финляндией, имеет свою неповторимую историю. Люди там наполовину русские – наполовину финны, то есть, в душе, конечно, остаются верными своим традициям, но деньги зарабатывают, в основном, благодаря иностранным соседям. В Санкт-Петербурге ребята задержались на целую неделю, и не зря – там было на что посмотреть. Самыми возвышенными словами англичане описывали свои впечатления о Питере: wonderful, beautiful, perfect, especially. Они катались по городу, были в Эрмитаже, бродили по набережной. Столько же времени они провели и в Москве.
- Это город современный и деловой. Он живет своим ускоренным темпом. В Петербурге хочется отдыхать и восхищаться жизнью, а в Москве только зарабатывать деньги, - говорит Том.
В Нижнем Новгороде путешественникам понравился Кремль и другие старинные строения. Далее по маршруту были Казань и Пермь. В последнем городе один из мотоциклов сломался, потом туристов застал сильный дождь, свойственный этим местам. В Перми Тому и Питеру пришлось задержаться на целых пять дней. Следующие два дня они пробыли в Екатеринбурге. И, наконец, совсем приблизились к Казахстану, остановившись в Омске. Преодолев еще 400 километров, ребята оказались в Павлодаре, поселились в одноименной гостинице.
- Вы так долго путешествуете и каждый день вместе, не надоели друг другу?
- Иногда бывает, поворчим, разбежимся по комнатам, а на следующий день опять в путь.
- Страшно не бывает, ведь Россия – это вам не Англия, могут и мотоциклы украсть, и в глаз дать?
- С людьми, способными на это, нас, слава Богу, судьба не сводила и, надеемся, форс-мажорные обстоятельства обойдут их стороной.
О наших людях англичане говорят наилучшим образом: отзывчивы, приветливы и доброжелательны, всегда помогут найти дорогу или объяснить непонятый иностранцем момент. Однажды в кафе один из посетителей, услышав их разговор, угостил путешественников пивом. Для англичан это был большой сюрприз. С казахскими таможенниками и дорожными полицейскими они вообще не имели никаких проблем. Том и Питер очень удивились, услышав, что в Павлодаре работают волонтеры из Америки и Европы, много спрашивали о нашем уровне жизни, поражались низким ценам и отметили хорошее знание многих россиян и казахстанцев английского языка – их соотечественники ограничиваются лишь родной речью.
Дальше путь мотоциклистов лежит через восточную и южную часть Казахстана (Семипалатинск, Алматы), Кыргызстан, Таджикистан, Памир, Узбекистан, Туркменистан, Иран, Пакистан, Индию, Тайланд и Индонезию. Если хватит денег, финишировать путешественники планируют в Австралии, добираться до которой хотят или через океан, или на самолете. Каждый свой шаг, впечатления от увиденного, а также фото, Том и Питер размещают на собственном web-сайте http://www.motobiketrip.com/. Возможно, вскоре там появится несколько слов и о Павлодаре.
Pavalodar Versia

Now he's beardy, now he's not...

2006-09-04T21:00:00.000+01:00

Tajik Pete, as he had become known with his beard, made the bold move of removing it from his face in order to cope with the desert Kazakh heat, personal hygiene issues and comments from the locals that he looks like he is from Tajikistan. It is perhaps not advantageous for him to look like he is Tajik when in Kazakhstan, but useful in three weeks when we will be in Tajikistan. Can he grow it back in time?

Almaty (via Semey, Ayakoz and Taldy Korghan), Kazakhstan - 8074 miles from London

2006-08-19T13:53:00.000+01:00

For the first time in what felt like an age we had been problem free since paying the bribe at the Russian / Kazakhstan border two days earlier. This wasn't to last and about an hour after lunch on the road between Pavlodar and Semey disaster struck after a momentary lapse of concentration on both our parts meant that, of all things, we crashed into each other! This was quite an achievement given that we were on a long and straight desert road with only the occasional other vehicle and, for once, a fairly good road surface.

The "slight dent" in the right-hand side of Peter's tank and the "minor scuffing" to the right-hand cylinder head cover

Tom had been running low on petrol for a while and we had not seen a garage, which was open, for a good hour or so before lunch. Tom was riding ahead and when he pulled level with a solitary building alongside the road he noticed that hidden behind this was a tiny garage. Although he had already decreased his speed a little before he got near to the building, when he spied the garage itself he slowed down sharply with the intention of pulling in to the left.
Unfortunately, almost a second or two before he had slowed down Peter had glanced over to his right seeing something or other that caught his eye. Since he was riding along at just under sixty mph the speed at which Tom had slowed down meant that the few seconds that that he had taken his eyes off the road were sufficient for him to get so close that when he looked back he saw the back of Tom's bike uncomfortably close to his and had time only to brake and try to swerve out of the way.

If neither of us had had the panniers on the bikes the swerve would have been enough to avoid the collision, but the presence of the panniers meant that each of Peter's right hand pannier and Tom's left hand pannier were ripped off their respective bikes. In addition to this, as Peter swerved, his bike slipped out from under him and careered across the road with him following it sliding along the road on his back. We think the impact happened when Peter was going between forty and fifty mph and Tom was going somewhere in the region of twenty to thirty mph.

Neither of us seemed to be badly hurt, Peter almost immediately having picked himself up was swearing violently about what had happened and storming down the road. As you do, we put shock to one side and both went into crisis mode trying to sort out the situation in the most logical way, dealing with first clearing the road of our possessions and then uprighting Peter's bike which had been lying on its side on the left of the road. When it was lifted up we were greeted by the sight of a badly dented petrol tank and, upon further inspection, a cracked right hand cylinder head cover which spewed oil as soon as the engine was started. The panniers seemed completely ruined, torn and bent into all shapes and we set to work sorting out possessions from around the crash site. Some were clearly permanently broken (including Tom's computer) and others badly damaged.

The battered panniers after the crash

Minutes after the collision, miraculously Shinara, who of all things lived in Belfast and spoke fluent English turned up on the scene. We had been extremely surprised to meet her at lunch in the roadside café. She and her family, who were traveling to Semey, helped us to collect our things together and said that they would take them to Semey so that we could pick them up when we made it into town with the bikes. The immediate problem was now how to get Peter's bike into a state so that we could ride to Semey and get some proper attention. At that point four young guys, Sasha, Max, Sergei and Andrei came from no-where and realising that we had a problem and without speaking a word of English they immediately got to work botching together some sort of repair which allowed Peter's bike to limp to Semey. They refused to take any money for the oil and other materials that they gave us or for the three hours of their time.

The guys who got us limping to Semey
We very gratefully left them and rather irritatingly it was during the ride into Semey that we discovered that the frame for Tom's pannier had been badly bent in the accident and was now banging on his back wheel whenever he went over any sort of bump. Given the problem with the frame and the fact that Peter's bike was over-heating, we road into the night (which in itself is dangerous in Kazakhstan) at about thirty mph, stopping every ten miles to top up Peter's bike with the oil that the four guys had kindly given us earlier.

The next day we went to Shinara's house and after being given lunch by her sister-in-law and being introduced to her brother-in-law (the wonderfully named Aslan-Bek who we will talk a bit more about below) we were taken by Aslan-Bek to a garage suggested by the kids the day before.

Tom's pannier frame being re-crafted
The mechanics put aside other work to put five or six people to work on our bikes. Four hours later we left the garage with a pannier frame that had been impressively bashed and welded back into some sort of pannier frame shape and which seemed to be no longer banging on the back wheel and a cylinder head cover that had been cleaned, welded back together with some sort of cold metal weld and then, thrown into the bargain, repainted.

Aslan-Bek then took us, with the smashed up panniers, to some panel beater friends of his. In an afternoon these guys managed to beat and bend the aluminium panniers back into shape (which we thought would be impossible) so that, other than looking a little battered, they almost looked as good as new. Having done this for us they then refused to charge us for any of the work they had done!

The panel beaters who repaired the panniers
We were both astounded by the speed and the skill exercised by the garage and the panel beaters. This is a sort of can-do attitude that you rarely see in the UK where we are too used to wastefully replacing and not repairing what is damaged. The efforts of these people managed to save us from, potentially a huge set back in our trip, and we cannot thank them enough for what they did.

Another big thanks must go to Shinara, her family and especially Aslan-Bek and his family Aisyly, Raimbek and Annel. Aslan-Bek is a captain in the Semey traffic police and, it is safe to say, enjoys the good life. Married with two children he lives in a lovely house with all the mod cons including his own personal banya (similar to sauna) in his back garden and his life seems to consist of mainly (and in no particular order) eating, drinking, hunting bears and other wildlife in the mountains, going to the banya and spending time with his family.

On our final night in Semey we were invited by Aslan-Bek and his family to dinner at their house and when we turned up flushed with the success we'd had with the bikes and the panniers we were greeted with a huge spread, specially prepared for us, of local foods, salads and somewhat ominously, lurking at one end of the table, a large bottle of vodka. Of the man himself there was no sign and we were told by Shinara that he was still at work and that while we waited for him to come back we should perhaps have a banya to relax ourselves and get us ready for dinner. To this end we were handed bunches of birch twigs (to beat ourselves with), soap, towels and escorted to the banya.

First Aslan-Bek's banya and then as the evening progresses we get to play with his guns
About fourty five minutes later, emerging, slightly battered but refreshed, from the banya we went back into the house and the four hours of eating, drinking and toasting commenced (all of which it is impossible and extremely impolite to refuse). One hour and a bottle of vodka later Aslan-Bek walked through the door unusually merry. It was at that point that it emerged that he had not been at work all this time as we had been told, but had instead been at a public banya with his friends and while there had worked his way through a couple of bottles of vodka with a few bites of bliny. The evening proceeded as before but this time with Aslan-Bek providing entertaining company and as the empty bottles mounted we were allowed to play with his hunting guns and inspect the fur of the bears he had shot up in the Altay Mountains. All of this time Shinara was painstakingly translating between all the parties.

At two in the morning Aslan-Bek felt that it was now time for Peter to try a Kazakh tradition and to drink the blood of a mountain goat. In order to find the aforesaid blood we all piled into his car and somewhat unsteadily drove across town to the house of a more junior policeman that Aslan-Bek worked with. After waking the unfortunate guy and his family up we all sat in his kitchen until nearly four drinking more vodka and eating the food his wife kindly prepared for us while in the middle of the table was a smaller bottle filled with a mysterious red looking liquid.

Drinks with Aslan Bek, Shinara and her sister and then late night food, vodka and goat's blood in Semey
Maybe it was the amount that was drunk by Aslan-Bek, but we were released at four and dropped back at the hotel without the bottle of red stuff ever having been opened and so to this day Peter has no idea whether he had a lucky escape from drinking goats blood or whether he was the subject of a practical joke – the blood just being tomato juice mixed, no doubt, with vodka.

We have never known anything quite like the hospitality and generousity of Shinara and her family and it was this in the forefront of our minds that we made the three day ride from Semey to Almaty, staying along the way in the towns of Ayakoz (a pretty frightening place) and Taldy-Korghan. Before we left, as if everything that had been done for us was not enough, we were also given a bottle of Chinese vodka and Aslan-Bek's business card to use if we had any police trouble along the road. We will no doubt be analyising the reasons for this accident and trying to learn from it for some time to come, but if it hadn't have happened we would not have met the people that we met and had the very unforgetable experience that we had with them. Hopefully we will see Shinara again in the UK and if Aslan-Bek and family are ever in London we would love to see them too.

Written by Peter and Tom (incorporating extracts of the insurance claim we are making!)

Pavlodar, Kazakhstan - 6933 miles from London (GMT + 6 hours)

2006-08-08T09:44:00.000+01:00

There's a problem. Russian customs notice that the import documents aren't in order and make phone calls.
We were running a couple of minutes late, not good if were had been taking part competitively in the Siberian International Marathon, but as we were merely observers, all it meant was that we heard, but did not see, the start of the race. We were however in time to watch the crowds of runners go through the start point and the start of a number of side races between groups of young school children, Hari Christnas and other unlikely candidates.

We then wondered around the flower market, which had special anniversary celebration flower displays, stopped to watch a man selling small snakes and to then buy a bust of Lenin (what trip to Russia would be complete without one - in fact this is only one of two physical souvenirs that I have from the country), dropped in to the Museum of Writing to find it was a building site and instead paid a visit to a military museum which was very boring and we ended up just sitting and watching Russians posing in front of military hardware for family photographs. It was a very hot Siberian day, not good for the runners, but a good excuse to go to a bar by the River Irtysh. This is where we met a Russian couple who barely spoke English, but still insisted on buying us beer and food all evening, having numerous pictures taken with us and then, as we were leaving, signing bank notes and presenting one to each of us at the end of the evening to remember them by (this incidentally was how I got my second physical souvenir). These were the last civilians we were to interact with in Russia and, partly because of the alcohol, but mostly because of the hospitality that two strangers, completely unprompted and without the desire for anything in return, showed us, this left me with a warm feeling about the country and its people. We had come across this type of behavior throughout Russia and a reminder of it on the last evening seemed very apt.

The next day wasn't so pleasant. On the Russian side of the Russian / Kazakhstan border we lined up with the truck drivers at the numerous porta-cabins to have our documents inspected. As we thought would happen, at the customs cabin they had immediately and correctly spotted that our import permits for the bikes had expired two weeks earlier. Phone calls were made and the word "problem" used a lot and then we were questioned about why we hadn't taken the bikes out of the country earlier. With gestures, a few words of Russian and some photographs we told a well rehearsed story about the problem with the tire that Peter had in Perm. The problem was acknowledged, but 14 days was pronounced to be an excessive time to sort it out. One of the border guards was then sent outside with us to inspect the bikes. He looked at Peter's old tire, which had been patched up and he was carrying as a spare and an invoice from BMW in Perm, which for some unknown reason referred to the wrong frame number for the bike. This caused confusion which passed about five minutes later and Peter was told that he could go, but that I must stay behind in Russia. This was totally illogical and we realised immediately that this was some sort of game which we knew we had to play. We therefore objected hard to the proposed cause of action and the border guard predictably said that he might be able to help if we were prepared to pay an unofficial fine. We knew it was to be an "unofficial" fine because he put his finger to his lips and said "shhhh". He asked us to make him an offer. We had been prepared for this too and we made our lowest opening offer, 1000 Roubles each (about 40 pounds in total). To our surprise this was accepted which was great news for us, because the actual official cost of extending the permits was considerably more than this. So the import permit saga which had caused us to spend four days in and out of various government offices, to return from Moscow to St Petersburg on a night train and then to race through European Russia had ended in a 40 pound bribe to a Russian border guard! As we have come to learn on this trip, that is the way it goes…

After the one hour closure for lunch, the border reopened and with the correctly stamped Russian paperwork stuffed in our tank bags, we proceeded to the Kazakh side. It immediately felt like we were entering a different country as the border guards were Mongol or Chinese looking.

The Kazakh side of the border
The Kazakh officials took great interest in us and we became a curiosity for a few hours, during which time we were made to unpack the bikes in front of all the other motorists who were proceeding uneventfully through the border. We had to repeatedly answer the same questions in Russian about, among other things, where we were from, where we were going, how much the bikes were worth, how big the engines are and how fast they went. These were questions that, since entering Russia, we had been used to answering up to a dozen times a day when we were on the road. It was all pretty good natured, if not a little humiliating. At one point totally out of the blue I was given a tape of Kazakh music which was a nice surprise. The whole fiasco seemed to come to a sudden end when I was asked what my profession was. When I said that my friend and I were both lawyers, we were told to repack the bikes and one of the Kazakh guards said the words I had been waiting for: "Tom, go Kazakhstan". And I did.

Peter reading The Lonely Planet in Pavlodar
Pavlodar was described in the Lonely Planet as being heavily a industrial town, but we found it to be surprisingly pleasant with a good vibe. The hospitality continued the evening we arrived in a riverside beer tent when a man slammed down a beer and, without making eye contact with either of us, said in English "for you", and walked off. Before leaving town we visited the photography museum dedicated to the work of D.P Bagaev, a local photographer who had lived on the site, but unfortunately much of the museum seemed to have burnt down in a fire caused by a malfunctioning central heating system and as a result we weren't charged for entry. We also conducted an interview for a local newspaper which was set up after a journalist had noticed the bikes outside the hotel. Leaving Pavloldar, we headed east bound for Semey, a place we had been concerned about during the planning stage of the trip due to 467 nuclear tests carried out by the Russians just outside the town in an area known as the Polygon between 1949 and 1991. Lake Balapan within the Polygon is a 400m wide, 800m deep crater left by a 130 kiloton nuclear explosion and since filled with water. Radiation in the lake is meant to be 200 times the national average. Apparently Semey’s local hospitals still struggle to cope with local residents who still suffer as a result of these tests.
Written by Tom

Kazahkstan calling; will you accept the charges?
We now both have Kazakh mobile numbers:
Tom: 0077 0576 67714;
Peter: 0077 0576 67712
The cost of calling the UK from these is extortionate and using my Orange SIM it is one pound seventy five a minute. If you want to call us, a service called Telediscount offer calls to Kazakh mobile numbers for 10 pence a minute. Just dial 0871 999 28 28 and then enter the mobile number. It is very simple. Their web-site explains more: www.telediscount.co.uk/index2.php

I have a Skype account but I don't yet understand how to use it.
My Skype address: tom_skype_phone

До Свидания Россия. Здравстуйте Казахстан! (Goodbye Russia. Hello Kazakhstan!) – Omsk 6664 miles from London

2006-08-04T07:05:00.000+01:00

Beach volleyball in Siberia's searing heat

After five days in Perm the BMW garage, following a Herculean effort on their part, managed to track down somewhere in Moscow a replacement front tyre for my bike which they had shipped to us in Perm.

The guys at BMW, Perm who worked wonders with my tyre

In addition to doing this they repaired the old tyre with a repair which they guaranteed would make the tyre as good as new. While I do have a few doubts as to whether a repaired front tyre is going to be as good as that I was grateful for their efforts and we were able to enjoy the icon museum (which it turned out also boasted a UNESCO protected collection of religious statues called Perm sculptures) and the sites of Perm with a restful mind.

One of Perm's more unexpected sights!

We left Perm on the Sunday happy to be back on the road and without too many problems (our time in Russia has made us view being stopped by the police as a minor annoyance rather than a problem!) made the short ride to Yekaterinburg. After two days in Yekaterinburg we saw enough of the city to be slightly disappointed with the place (the guide book had said that Yekaterinburg was one of Russia’s must see cities, but we found the place unattractive and, although it had a nice feel, not terribly interesting) and left for Tyumen.

We stayed in Tyumen for only one night and left early the next morning for Omsk which we reached after a mammoth ride of over four hundred miles on, for the most part, pretty good roads.

An example of the wooden houses for which Tyumen is famous and of the road works for which Russia is famous

We arrived in Omsk to be greeted by the news that this weekend Omsk is gearing up for its two hundred and ninety year celebrations commemorating its founding in 1716. Coupled with the fact that the Siberian International Marathon was taking place in the city on Saturday meant that the weekend was likely to be quite some party. As we need a bit of time in Omsk to sort out replacement tyres for our bikes in Almaty we are going to stay until Sunday and on Sunday make a break for the Kazak border and the next leg of the trip.
In the time we have been in Russia we have travelled from the European city of St Petersburg with its palaces, canals and museums all the way into Asia to just short of where China and Mongolia border of Russia in the heart of the wilderness that is Siberia.

Siberian farmers transport logs in a manner which has not changed for generations

In that time we have had a whole range of experiences which have challenged the pre-conceived view we had of Russia when we arrived. With only a few exceptions the people here have been welcoming and friendly and although we speak next to no Russian from the businessmen on the train to St Petersburg who drank and talked with us until the early hours of the morning and then insisted that we pay for nothing, to the guys at the garage in Perm who went to so much effort to track down a tyre for my bike nearly everyone we have met have served to leave us with warm memories of Russia and the Russian people.
When we cross into Kazakhstan, only a few hundred miles from here, we will face a whole new set of challenges and as we leave behind us the still vaguely European feeling Russia and cross over into Central Asia we are acutely aware now of how far we have come since leaving London back in June. We have already started to see indications of how much things will change with mosques becoming more frequent an occurrence in the towns and villages we pass through and there being more people with Chinese and Mongolian features instead of the European and Slavic looking Russian peoples we have encountered so far.
While it will be a shame to leave Russia with so much that we have not yet seen we are worried about the lack of proper import documents for the bikes and although it is tempting to stay for a week or so longer and see places further east of here – in particular the Altay mountains and Tomsk – we don’t want to exacerbate the difficulties with the border guards we are almost certain to face when we leave and so are reluctantly going to take our leave of Mother Russia and head south into Central Asia.

Written by Peter

СКОЛЪКО ЭТО СТОИТ? (How much is it?)

2006-07-28T08:18:00.000+01:00

СКОЛЪКО ЭТО СТОИТ? (skolka eta sto-eet?)

A litre of water - 18 roubles - 36p
A bottle of Russian beer - 17.5 roubles - 35p
A can of Coca Cola - 13 roubles - 26p
A bottle of imported beer - 40 roubles - 80p
Half a litre of vodka - 60 roubles - One pound twenty
A packet of Russian cigarettes - 9 roubles - 18p
A packet of Malboro cigarettes - 30 roubles - 60p
A locally made ice cream - 5 roubles - 10p
A hot dog - 10 roubles - 20p
A packet of crisps - 10 roubles - 20p
A small packet of peanuts - 7 roubles - 14p
A packet of noodles - 3 roubles - 6p

(Prices displayed are currently offered at a kiosk in Perm and were correct at the time of going to press. Prices may vary from kiosk to kiosk. Prices were calculated using an exchange rate of 50 Russian roubles to 1 GBP)

Perm, Russia – 5828 miles from London (GMT + 6 hours)

2006-07-27T08:27:00.000+01:00

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Peter pushing his bike in the heavy rain in Perm

Our final few days in Moscow were taken up with us desperately trying to extend the temporary import documents we were given for the bikes upon entering Russia. At present we must leave Russia on the 19th July 2006 otherwise the bikes will be in Russia illegally and we spent two days in Moscow trying to sort this out. This culminated in a visit to two government offices which resulted in nothing more than an afternoon sitting in a corridor being spoken to, in Russian, by a security guard. After three hours a severe looking babushka emerged from behind a door at the end of the corridor, advanced slowly and menacingly towards us, told us that there was nothing we could do and we had to leave Russia now and left us standing in the corridor clasping our bits of paper with the security guard still talking to us about goodness knows what. After this set back we felt had one final option left to us and that was to take the night train back to St Petersburg and to go back to the office we had already visited a few weeks before in a final last ditch attempt to extend the permit. We left with high hopes that St Petersburg would be able to help us as when we had spoken to them last they told us that all we needed was a stamp from a hotel saying that we were staying in Russia for the duration of our visa. This was the one thing we had successful obtained in Moscow and so we were cautiously optimistic as we boarded the night train.

Tom trying to dodge the ticket inspector on the train to St Petersburg

The next morning we arrived in St Petersburg bleary eyed and hungover after meeting some Russian business men on the train with whom we spent the greater part of the evening drinking vodka, toasting international friendship and singing Beatles songs. Upon arriving at the offices we were told that there was nothing they could do for us as we did not have the bikes here in St Petersburg and anyway the hotel stamp we had was for a Moscow hotel and it had to be a St Petersburg one. We were even taken to see the Director who sat in his own office behind an empty desk and who, after hearing our sob story, gave us the one word answer "No" dismissing us with a shake of his head. Heading back to Moscow in the evening we agreed to give up trying to get the permit extended and to simply pay the fine St Petersburg told us the customs people would make us pay when we attempted to leave the country. This does mean that our bikes are now here illegally, but at the moment we have given up caring.

We left Moscow on the 21st July 2006 somewhat late in the day it being nearly 3pm by the time we had sorted ourselves out and were on the road. A long ride on the M7 took us from Moscow to Russia’s third largest city (and historically its wealthiest, although we are not sure this is still the case) of Nizhny Novgorod. Our late departure from Moscow and the fact that the roads, while in good condition, were chock full of articulated lorries meant that we did not arrive in Nizhny Novgorod until late in the evening. Although we arrived late we were lucky and found a hotel quickly. The hotel we did find was massive - a fact I found strange given that Nizhny Novgorod, while big, was no where near as large as places like Moscow and St Petersburg and could hardly be expected to attract anywhere near the same number of visitors. A night in one of their un-renovated (and therefore cheaper) rooms was much needed and passed without incident other than the door handle to the room falling off whenever we tried to lock the door. The next morning a quick ride around the city centre took us to the 17th Century Kremlin where we watched a couple having wedding photos taken next to, rather oddly, the war memorial and a Russian Second World War battle tank and then we went to Maxim Gorky’s house. Gorky was born and lived in this city (which was actually called Gorky during the Soviet era) and the local authorities have preserved the house in which he apparantly spent the first twenty-five years of his life. Despite it appearing to be closed we were ushered in by the security guard and introduced to the Director who allocated us a tour guide.

Peter making friends with the Director and tour guide at Gorky's house (more pictures of Gorky's House on Tom's photo page)

The guide, an elderly lady who spoke not a word of English, gave us a long tour of the building telling us reams of information about Gorky’s life and the history of the place as we walked from room to room. Given our meagre Russian language skills we understood nothing of what she said and, despite us telling her that, she just kept on going with the thinking presumably being that since we had paid our money we would get the full tour no matter what.
The road from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan was as full of lorries as we had come to expect of Russian roads and despite it only being just under three hundred miles it took us a good six hours with the result that we arrived late in the evening again. Despite this we still found a hotel with ease simply by riding around the city centre until we saw largest and ugliest behemoth of a building which we were starting to learn was inevitably a Soviet built hotel. Kazan kept us for no time at all and we left there first thing in the morning intending to get to Perm that day. In the end we made it as far as Izhevsk and so a night there in yet again another un-renovated room in a concrete block of a hotel left gave us a break and left us sort of ready for the ride to Perm.

A lorry which ran into a few difficulties on the road to Perm

Since the motorbikes are now in Russia illegally we are understandably reluctant to spend too long here and this is why we have been heading to the Kazak border at as fast a pace as we can manage. Notwithstanding this we still want to see as much of Russia as we can and so upon leaving Moscow our intention had been to spend a minimum of one night in a place unless there was a real reason to spend longer there. Until we got to Perm our plan had been to spend more than one night in Yekaterinaburg only to give ourselves a break as the ride from Moscow was starting to take a toll on us (when we got to Perm we had ridden 1000 miles in four days); however, when we got to Perm all this went out of the window.

Perm in all it's industrial beauty and in those heady days when Peter's front tyre was still intact

As we pulled into the city in the pouring rain and after a long day riding on some of the worst roads we had seen so far my bike hit a manhole which, for some unknown reason, had had the manhole cover removed. This burst my front tyre and meant that I had to push the bike the remaining hundred or so yards to the hotel. We are now stuck here in Perm until I can get the tyre replaced or repaired. Luckily there is a BMW dealer in town, although when I spoke with them yesterday I was told that, after they had spoken to BMW in Moscow, they can confirm that there are no tyres in Russia which will fit my bike. New tires will have to ordered from the manufacturer in Germany and that will take in the region of two to three weeks. So here we are in Perm a large industrial city with nothing at all here other than an art gallery and museum which the guide book tells us has the largest religious icon collection in Russia. When we manage to get my bike tyre sorted out we will be heading east and in one hundred and fifty miles will be crossing the Europe/Asia border and entering Siberia. Since we will have to hot foot it the Kazak border we probably won't have any more time for postings until we get to Almaty in hopefully a few weeks time. So watch this space ...

Written by Peter

A view of Nizhniy Novgorod from the Kremlin (left); the road to perm (right)

Moscow, Russia - 4827 miles from London

2006-07-16T16:24:00.000+01:00

St Basil's, the view from Red Square (the classic Moscow picture)
To travel from St Petersburg to Moscow The Lonely Planet recommends making the 400 mile or so journey in a berth on the night train. Instead, you could do as we did and take the more interesting route by driving the M10 which connects Russia's two major cities. The majority of vehicles are trucks and, whilst short stretches of the road are smooth dual carriageway, much of it is pot holed and rutted tarmac, often with no road markings even to distinguish what side of the road you are on. When there is something resembling a hard shoulder it is usually made of sand which is used to help to bring to a standstill trucks that have burst a worn down tire. Towns on this road don't have by-passes so you will find yourself passing straight through the middle them on what is their high street. After a while you get an instinct for where the next police speed trap will be and whether a town will have a check point on one side of it or not and once you have got used to the high speed overtaking and undertaking (usually by 4 x 4s undoubtedly owned by Russia's nouveau riche) and what it is really like to be stuck in a rut by driving in one you can relax a little and start to take in a bit of the culture of the road. It is quite an experience. You might see, as I did, gravestones by the roadside, truck drivers taking a dip in a river with their wives or lady friends (they quite often seem to travel with company), families stopped in the hard shoulder having BBQs, locals dotted along the route selling a single jar of locally picked berries or stalls with fun fair style cuddly toys and towels with pictures of lorries printed on them, town houses literally on the side of the road collapsing into themselves, truck drivers stopping to help fellow drivers change a wheel and farmers making hay. To break up the journey you could spend the night as we did in the Hotel Tver. Don't be deceived by the fact that the roof is half built, it is a half decent hotel as long as it's not raining, but do watch out for the gigantic horse flies outside. Their bite is apparently pretty painful.

Leaving St. Petersburg as the hotel filled up with journalists covering the G8. Picture of me with the security guard who we paid too much to watch over our bikes
One of the high speed overtakes we experienced was made by a Slovakian biker couple who waved to us as they passed (as all bikers do as they pass). We later met them outside the Hotel Tver and then again in Moscow after recommending them a hostel we had found. It was good to exchange stories of the road with Branco and Natasha and to relieve the monotony of our own company that we were beginning to experience.

Branco and Natasha
Using the Sherstone Hostel as a base in Moscow we are seeing what tourists typically see in Moscow and finding that the city has much less to offer sight hungry tourists (which we do not class ourselves as) than St Petersburg. This is a much more gritty hard working city, noticeably less style conscious and with a good deal of the utilitarian style architecture that you would expect to see in Russia. In the quest to extend the import permits for the bikes we are experiencing far too much of the frustration caused by Russian bureaucracy which also is heightened by the fact that we only speak a few words of Russian and almost no-one speaks English here. If we don't extend our permits we are required to leave the country with the bikes this Thursday which, given the distance to Kazakhstan, is now impossible. More on this to follow...

The bikes at BMW in Moscow. On the left, Dennis, the service manager. We were treated very wel here and told that only four people touring had passed through their gates for a service this year.
I will finish this entry with a thought I have just had about our trip and the Metro system in both St. Petersburg and Moscow. It is not just my inability to transcribe cyrillic with any speed or accuracy but, you just need to take my word for the fact that they are both extremely badly signed and there are very few maps on either of the transit systems. One reason for this must be because it wasn't long ago that very few people who were not native to these cities traveled on these trains and these frequent travelers always knew where they were going. In 2006 as we are finding, albeit with quite a bit of effort, two guys from England are able to enter the country and ride around relatively freely on their own motorbikes.

The Moscow Metro, which apparently is used by more people every day than together use the London Underground and the New York Subway.

Written by Tom

St Petersburg, Russia - 4452 miles from London

2006-07-07T15:59:00.000+01:00

We have finally made it into Russia. After four and a half exhausting hours at the border attempting to take on Russian bureaucracy one to one we retreated defeated and spent and acquiesced to the every officials wish for this and that document to be completed and filled out. After giving two copies of this form to the young woman in the first cabin, a payment of 100 Roubles to the woman in the bank (after we had killed one and a half hours waiting for her to finish her evening break), another two forms to the man in the next cabin along and the final scrap of paper to the soldier who was supposed to check our bikes we were free to go.

The Russian border crossing

Despite all this the whole thing was no where near as bad as we had feared it would be. The customs never even took a close look at our bikes, no-one asked Tom about is GPS and it would appear that no-one seemed to have an issue with the missing stamp that worried us so much in Lappenranta. Of course something had to go wrong and other than the bank closing for an hour and a half just as we were about to pay our 100 Roubles to the woman there the only slight hitch was that we have only been granted a two week import permit for the bikes to come into Russia. Although our visa says that we are allowed to stay in Russia until the middle of August the import certificate we have been given says that the bikes can only stay until the 19th July 2006. No matter as we have been given, by the customs man, a telephone number and address of someone in St Petersburg who will be able to help us; so that’s alright then!
We arrived in St Petersburg just after midnight and, despite all the previous good intentions we had had of booking a hotel in St Petersburg well in advance of our arrival, we have still not managed to sort anything out. One am therefore saw us sitting in a café somewhere in St Petersburg calling hotels and finding out that each was full and had no space at all. While I was on the phone to the hotels Tom was trying to work what on earth was in the seemingly totally solid hot chocolate drink he had ordered while at the same time trying to ignore the blind drunk Russian guys sitting at a table outside the café and alternately dancing, laughing and plastering themselves against the window in an attempt to get Tom’s attention. We didn’t stay there long as we shortly thereafter found a reasonable hotel and hotfooted it to there leaving solid hot chocolate and drunk Russians behind us.

St Petersburg kids cooling off in the heatwave

St Petersburg has so far proved to be a beautiful and fascinating city. The River Neva is flanked on both sides by Baroque houses painted a multitide of colours and all in good condition while The Hermitage has a huge collection of paintings and other art works which we all housed in the spectacular Winter Palace and which we in our four and a half hours there barely managed to see.

Photo of the St Petersburg Metro taken shortly before we were fined for taking pictures on the Metro

One of the most intriguing sights we have seen so far in St Petersburg has been the predominance of elderly ladies. They crop up in all manner of places, The Hemitage, the Metro, shops, hotels, on the streets and loitering in and around apartments.

Babuska's guard The Hermitage

We have seen precious little though in the way of elderly men and can only wonder whether this is because the women are particularly strong and enduring or whether the men drink themselves into an early grave. Certainly we have seen far more in the way of public drinking here than in anywhere else we have been to so far – everywhere we look we see both men and women walking around with cans and bottles of beer and occasionally bottles of vodka or other spirits.

Written by Peter

We have both bought Russian SIM cards our mobiles. Our numbers are:

Peter: +7 9500 145385

Tom: +7 9500 145489

If you do want to call us, perhaps send a text and arrange a time for the call. Remember to check with whoever pays the bill before call! Call charges from the UK to Russian mobile numbers are likely to be exepensive.

Lappeenranta, Finnish border town - 4200 miles from London

2006-07-05T10:06:00.000+01:00

We plan to cross into Russia today at a border point about 30 miles southeast of Lappeenranta. Bureaucratic problems are already upon us. When we bought our third party Russian bike insurance this morning we were told that we do not have the necessary stamp on our visas to enter the country with the motorbikes. We went to the Russian consulate in town and they said that this is not a problem; however, the chap we spoke to then went on to say that we should not mention the abscence of the stamp to the border guards and that he wished us luck in trying to get across the border. Somehow this does not fill us with confidence ...

The Puijo Radio Tower, Finland. The radio waves from the tower jammed the signal from Peter's alarm remote. We had to push the bike down the hill away from the tower with the alarm going off to get it far enough away from the tower to disable the alarm. Apparantly this is a known fault with Datatool bike alarms. Think twice before buying one, particularly if you live near a radio tower!

The view from the radio tower

Camping in Koupori, Finland (left); the Sauana and the lake at the campsite (right).

Oulu, Finland (south of the Arctic Circle) 3820 miles from London

2006-07-01T18:16:00.000+01:00

Oulu
We crossed the deserted border into Finland from Norway in the rain just after midnight last Monday and went straight to a campsite about 500 metres away. I had noticed that an unusually large number of insects had been hitting my helmet visor for the last 60 miles or so and should have realised from the stories I had heard about northern Finland that I was riding through swarms of mosquitoes. It was hard work putting the tent up which was made a little easier by wearing a head mosquito net given to me as a leaving present at work and the fact that it wasn’t in the least bit dark.

Putting up the tent at 12.30am

In the morning we left as soon as the rain stopped and headed along long straight fast roads (unlike many of the roads in Norway) through monotonous wooded countryside and past reindeer to the town of Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, about 260 miles to the south. We had once again crossed the arctic circle which runs slightly to the north of the town and upon which Santa Claus lives. We went back to meet him at Santa Claus Village where the official arctic circle marker and Santa's post office, which receives over a million letters a year, is located. He was extremely personable and much more charismatic that the lookalikes I had encountered as a child. He promised to bring me world peace even if I was in India where they don't have chimneys.

On the ride to Rovaniemi (left); Santa's Office (right)

I imagine is strictly against the rules but very good of him. Peter and I also got talking to one of his elves, who was a normal sized woman called Sini. The whole experience was pretty surreal and made more so when we later bumped into Sini outside our hotel in the early hours of the morning (in bright sunlight!) and she invited us to her friend's flat. We gratefully accepted and we were treated by Sini and her friend Leena to a variety of different types of alcohol and an interesting insight into local life. It was really good talking with Sini and Leena and it a good example of how friendly and welcoming we have found the people in Norway and Finland to be.

Drinks in Leena's flat

The next morning we left the town where it is Christmas every day and which was built in the shape of reindeer antlers after its complete destruction by the Germans in 1944 and once again headed south, this time for the town of Oulu on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. We booked into the Radisson hotel which, for what it is was extremely modestly priced. We have been in Oulu for a few days now, relaxing, making use of the pool and the sauna and taking a deep breath and preparing to cross the border into Russia. We realise that this is probably the last of the easy life and that things will probably get pretty tricky from Russia onwards. Despite the proximity we have found that very few Finnish people that we have met have been to Russia and most we have spoken to don't have a good word to say about the country. Given their history with Russia we have tried not to give to much credence to some of the extreme stories we have heard.

The Radisson Hotel and the view from our hotel window
The guide book we have doesn't really do justice to Oulu but I suppose if you are on a short visit to the region the lack of tourist “attractions” that the town has may be a factor in deciding to visit Oulu or not. That said we are really enjoying it here. The weather is perfect, with clear blue skies and a slight breeze and there is a pretty nice beach that a local told us was the northern most beach in Europe. The harbour front bars are full and the town is lively and friendly in the sunshine. It is dificult to imagine what it is like here in the winter when we are told that the atmosphere is totally different and many people get very depressed in the darkness months. We have hired bicycles and have joined in with the local cycling culture. Crime here is so low that people don't really bother to lock their bikes up. Here are some facts about Finland:
Approximately 70% of Finland is covered with forest, the highest proportion in the world;
There are 187,888 lakes in Finland;
Nokia is a company founded in Finland in the town of Nokia which is on the banks of the Emäkoski River in the region of Pirkanmaa and the province of Western Finland. According to Wikipedia "nokia" is short for nokinäätä which apparantly means "sable". A sable is a small mammal, closely akin to the martens, living in northern Asia and used to live in European Russia and Scandinavia;
Finland used to be an expensive country like Norway but now and from our experience it is not very different to Britain;
29% of Fins think that immigrants should go back to their countries of origin;
25% of young men consider themselves somewhat supportive of the skinhead and anti-immigrant activities in Finland
Things may be improving. In 1993 61% of the population had negative attitudes towards accepting foreign workers compared to 38% in 2003.
(Racism statistics are from a English langauage magazine I was reading called SixDegrees - the next day we saw a man dressed in WWII Nazi uniform driving around the main square in Oulu in a vintage American car, playing Nazi marching music and giving the Hitler salute).

Written by Tom

Nordkapp and Knivskjellodden, Norway (within the Arctic Circle) - 3204 miles from London

2006-06-25T15:19:00.000+01:00

After a reasonably short ride from Tromsø, during which we battled against some of the worst rain we have seen so far, we arrived, thoroughly soaked, at a place in the north called Alta. This was a tiny town with a central area that was reminiscent of a business park and not much else. The guide book had recommended a campsite just outside of town which had been Norwegian campsite of the year in 2000. Despite having this option we opted for the next campsite along which had a sauna and mini-golf and ended up spending the night in a small wooden hut with a bad smell of damp and a Baby Belling stove. We left this place the next morning with dark threatening clouds overhead and rode north for Nordkapp and Knivskjellodden. The countryside became increasingly bleak and windswept as we neared our destination and for the forty or so miles before we reached the end of the road at Nordkapp nearly all signs of habitation disappeared and the only houses we came across were in the coast and were either Sami tourist shops or small clusters of fisherman’s houses. The Sami are the indigenous people who live in both this part of Norway and also in Lapland in Finland and historically survived by both fishing and herding reindeer. Nowadays both these are things are dying out and so one wonders what the future holds for these peoples.
Nordkapp itself is billed as the most northerly point on mainland Europe. However, it turns out that Nordkapp is not actually the most northerly point, but that this honour belongs to the next peninsular along – Knivskjellodden. We presume that the reason Nordkapp claims this title is because this is where the road ends and as Knivskjellodden cannot be reached by any way other than a long walk. It is additionally somewhat confusing that both Nordkapp and Knivskjellodden are actually on an island which can only be reached from the Norwegian mainland by driving through an eight kilometre tunnel linking the island with the mainland.

View of Nordkapp from Knivskjellodden
Whatever the merits of the claims of both Nordkapp and Knivskjellodden we made the trip and upon arriving at Nordkapp on our bikes we were greeted with the sight of toll booths and beyond what appeared to be a large car park and a visitors centre. We were not going to pay for what we believe is nothing more than access to a car park, restaurant and gift shops and instead, after a nights sleep in a nearby campsite, made the free eighteen kilometre walk to the actual most northerly point in Europe – Knivskjellodden.

Peter standing at Knivskjellodden and Tom signing the book at Knivskjellodden
The walk was a good way for us to get stretch our legs after three weeks of riding most days and doing little in the way of proper exercise. Amazingly we were incredibly lucky with the weather. When we woke on the morning of the twenty-fifth the rain was heavy and the sky (as it has seemed to be almost constantly for the last week or so) dark and menacing; however when we set off on the walk the skies cleared and it warmed up nicely. In fact when we got back from the walk almost six hours later the skies were blue and the weather warm (well as warm as it probably gets up here). Although there is no properly marked path to Knivskjellodden piles of stones have been put at various points along the route and these serve to send you in the right direction. When we arrived we were the only people there and it was quite a strange though to think that at that precise moment in time we were standing at a point further north than anyone else in Europe. We signed the book which is kept in metal box on a rock. We discovered from the signatures in the book that due to the winter weather no-one does the walk between October and April. People also leave odds and ends in the box, we came across a lighter, some coins, business cards, pens, and a photo of a random chap.

The Nordkapp car-park and ticket booths
Judging from the fact that we saw almost no-one on the walk and the sparse number of cars in the car park serving as the jumping off point for the walk it would seem that relatively few people make the effort to come to Knivskjellodden and instead make the far easier trip to the Nordkapp car park. While this is a shame it does mean that Knivskjellodden is pretty much untouched by humankind and incredibly peaceful and that made the effort of the walk all the more worthwhile.
One of the events on the walk was bumping into a British couple just before we got back to our bikes. He was a wood scientist who specialises in wood, rotting wood and the things that live in wood and he had come with his wife to Norway for a conference in Norway’s conference capital - Tromsø! Further confirmation, if this was needed that Tromsø does not party, but instead conferences.

Written by Peter

Tromsø, Norway (within the Arctic Circle) - 2780 miles from London

2006-06-22T11:06:00.000+01:00

12.45am in Tromsø
After leaving Hell we headed north for Tromsø¸ through some terrible weather. We stopped briefly at the Arctic Circle which is celebrated with a big car park, a Russian military memorial (for a reason unclear to us) and a circular cafe which was very tempting due to our sodden state, but closed. Although it wasn't getting dark, it was getting late so we decided to stay in a log cabin which was affiliated with a petrol station and was approximately 10 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Tom at the Arctic Circle
The next day we continued on to Tromsø and, after a long ride in the rain during which we were stopped by the police and earlier by some deer that had wandered into the road, we arrived in Tromsø with an hour to go before the England Sweden match started. It was at this point that we found that every hotel in town was booked up - something to do with a midnight marathon and the summer solstice some people said. One of the hoteliers was kind enough to make some phone calls and we found ourselves booked into a Catholic bible school which was open as a hostel in the summer months. We decided not to tell them when we checked in that we had been in Hell only the day before and we were given a couple of mattresses on the floor of one of the classrooms for a very reasonable price with breakfast included. We caught the second half of the England game and wandered around the town. Tromsø had sounded promising as the chapter in the Lonely Planet opens with the remark "Simply put, Tromsø parties". In the time we have been here we have found this to be wildly inaccurate. To be more precise "simply put, Tromsø conferences" turned out to be another reason why all the hotels are full and "Tromsø has alot of alcoholic Norwegians who have half killed themselves with home brewed moonshine".

The mid-night sun in Tromsø
The longest day passed without celebration in Tromsø¸ but we are told that it would be more lively on Friday. However to avoid any disappointment and because we really ought to move on, we have decided to leave tomorrow morning and head for Nordkapp from where we can walk to continental Europe's northernmost tip. We are also considering bringing our date for entry to Russia forward in an attempt to save some money. This would mean entering Russia further north than we had planned (possibly entering at a point level with Murmansk). We have found Norway extremely expensive. Here are a few examples of prices in Norway:
A beer in bar - between four pounds fifty and five pounds fifty;
A bottle of Coke from a shop - approximately one pound sixty;
A bread roll - approximately sixty pence, but you could be lucky and find one cheaper;
Milk (half a litre) - approximately one pound eighty;
Internet access in an internet cafe - approximately eight pounds an hour (we are currently in the public library where it is free); and
A night on the floor in the bible school including breakfast -approximately thirteen pounds (bargain!)

Tom talks to Halvard in a bar in Tromsø

Written by Tom

Welcome to Hell - 2051 miles from London

2006-06-19T10:52:00.000+01:00

We can't easily find an online translation for "gods expedition" but we are pretty sure that it isn't meant to be funny. We think it means "help with luggage" but if anyone knows it's exact meaning we would be grateful for an email on the subject.

Trondheim, Norway - 2045 miles from London

2006-06-18T17:43:00.000+01:00

Trondheim is Norway's third largest city but it really doesn't feel that big or that heavily populated. In a country with a population half that in London, I suppose that really isn't surprising. We arrived yesterday with hopes of staying in a cheap hostel we had read about. Unfortunately that hostel was in use as a student concert venue and so, with nowhere to stay in the city and tired from a very long ride, we decided to stay in a hotel which turned out to have free internet access. So, here I sit in the lobby of the Comfort Hotel in Trondheim writing this blog and watching the rain fall in the street outside. The city itself is pleasant enough with a picturesque harbour lined with warehouses and cathedral which apparently is Scandinavia's largest medieval building (constructed in the late 11th century). We wondered around the city today and visited Nidaros Cathedral and the archbishop's palace which houses a military museum. We spent Saturday night in a micro-brewery which served bitter which for some reason needed to settle for five minutes after pouring. After the brewery we went to a couple of other bars in town and chatted to some locals. One guy, a civil engineering student from the north, told us a very sad story about how the love of his life had left him for a midget. He was a very nice, but a rather sad bloke, who used a form of tobacco which you put under your top lip. This type of tobacco is pretty popular in Norway as smoking has been banned in public places for quite some time. Using this tobacco seems to have a rather nasty effect on the top lip of the user as it is placed the underneath the top lip to be absorded into the blood stream through the lip lining. I wonder whether this will take off in England as smoking is more widely outlawed. After a fairly late night, during which we discovered that it doesn't get dark here and that it is actually bright daylight at 2.30am, a leisurely day was definitely in order.

Early tomorrow morning we are heading north out of town. Our first stop will be the town of Hell, about 16 miles north of Trondheim. Unfortunately we will not have time to come back! With the promise of the mid-night sun, we want to try to make it into the arctic circle for 21st June, the longest day of the year.

Written by Tom

Road from Bergen to Trondheim, via Lustrafjorden

2006-06-17T12:14:00.000+01:00

We are camped at the moment next to a fjord which according to the map is called Lustrafjorden. We left Bergen this morning and, after a few easily solved problems with Tom’s front head light bulb (the bulb blew just as we were about to leave and the spare bulbs he had brought with him had a lifespan of seconds), we took the E16 to Voss and then Road 13 in the direction of Hermansverk. A short ferry crossing took us over the impressive Lustrafjorden and after perhaps an hour’s ride we stopped at this campsite. The campsite has a number of (at the moment unoccupied) cabins which and Tom has opted to sleep in one of these and hope the owner doesn’t find out. The campsite owner didn’t suspect a thing when he saw that we were camping here and so, while we feel a bit bad about being so flexible with the truth, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him! It is incredibly peaceful here and, although we are right next to the road, all we can really hear are the waters of the fjord lapping the shoreline and the muffled thunder of a waterfall on the other side of the fjord.

Peter rows to the waterfall
We left this campsite just before twelve after taking out one of the small rowing boats we assumed were available for use by people staying at the campsite. Tom wanted to row to other side to see how people lived on the other side of the fjord. However, less than half way across we gave up and rowed back – the distance to the other side was greater than we had thought and we lacked the requisite degree of athleticism needed to make it. The ride from Lustrajorden to Trondheim was incredibly demanding. The countryside was (as always!) spectacular and when we joined the Sognefjellet Road this took us up to near Sognefjell, one of Norway’s highest moutains.

Friendly sheep take an interest in the bikes
This road is (according to the guide book anyway) described as the “road over the roof of Norway” and takes you to a height of 1434 metres. It was built in 1939 by unemployed young people and presumably served to connect Bergen with Trondheim.

Written by Peter

Bergen, Norway - 1626 miles from London

2006-06-15T11:06:00.000+01:00

We arrived yesterday evening in the port town of Bergen and decided to stay for two nights in the YMCA in the centre (picture of our dorm left). It was still light here at mid-night last night and we are told that as we head north there will be no darkness hours.

The north of the country sounds pretty crazy. We were told by a local last night that you can only tell whether it is day or night time up there by whether the inhabitants are sober or drunk.

A bird on the head of a statue of Edvard Grieg (right)

View of Bergen on the walk down from the top of the funicular railway.

Road 7 from Oslo, via Flå, to Bergen

2006-06-15T11:04:00.000+01:00

We left Oslo late in the afternoon on the 13th June and picked a random town on the map called Flå which is on Road 7 heading towards Bergen. We purposefully tried to avoid taking main roads wanting to see some of the countryside and also wanting to save a bit of money and camp on uncultivated land (which it appears Norwegian law allows you to do for no cost). After a night near Flå we continued through spectacular countryside and arrived in Bergen around six yesterday evening. The countryside around Flå was wooded and the campsite was nestled in a gently sloping valley along the bottom of which ran a wide but very shallow river. We were already seeing the effects of the fact that it is getting dark later and later as I took the picture above of the boat and the river at nearly eleven at night and the light was still very good.

As we rode to Bergen the road climbed higher and higher into the mountains. Along with the falling temperature the scenery changed from forest to flat moorland and as we reached the highest part of the road (at an altitude of four thousand two hundred feet) patches of snow were increasingly common as were high mountain lakes which were still partially frozen over with thick ice. When we eventually descended from this inhospitable and isolated area we almost immediately noticed an increase in the temperature and even more so a further change in the scenery. The scrubby moorland was replaced again with thick woodland and deep valleys with sheer cliff walls down which we descended on narrow, windy mountain roads. Arriving in Bergen we realised that journeys of any length in Norway take more time than we would have usually expected and we are now intrigued by what lies ahead in the rest of Norway.

Oslo, Norway - 1317 miles from London

2006-06-13T13:35:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Oslo this morning after uneventfully crossing the border from Sweden yesterday evening into our first non-EU country. The border crossing was so uneventful that we weren't even required to stop the bikes, but were cheerfully waved through the border toll gate. We are also very fortunate that motorbike are not required to pay a toll on any of the many toll roads or bridges in Norway. Oslo seems like a fairly unattractive city. We decided not to stick around and so we took bus tour in order to get an overall impression of the city without actually walking anywhere! We actually ended up getting stuck in traffic jam after traffic jam and by the end we were not at all impressed by the over priced tour with its American commentary and not particularly impressed with what we saw of the city. After the tour we headed for the hills (quite literally). Heading north west along the same route taken by the famous Oslo to Bergen train line (famed for the stunning and varied countryside the line passes by and referred to in the guide book as "one of the most spectacular rail journeys on earth") we were looking forward to riding through some more of scenic Norway.

Here are a few interesting facts about Norway:
Norway has no external debt!;
Norway has a GDP per capita of US$37,700 (3rd highest in the world);
Norway has 413 doctors and 1840 nurses per 100,000 of the population (compared with 162 / 500 in the UK);
27% of the country is covered by forests;
Oil wealth: 14th largest reserves in the world, 6th largest producer, and 3rd biggest oil exporter, and
Alcohol is extremely expensive in Norway. Norway was one of the few countries in the world where the population actually voted for prohibition (in 1919, although the ban was lifted in 1927).

Above, two views of the exterior of the central station and the National Theatre with statues of Ibsen outside

Written by Tom

Ängelholm, Sweden - 999 miles from London

2006-06-10T21:10:00.000+01:00

We crossed into Sweden using the Oresund tunnel / bridge. The 10.5 mile crossing wasn't as impressive as we'd hoped due to fog which limited the visibility. After crossing into Sweden we headed up the Swedish coast a short way to Ãngelholm, which seemed like a Swedish version of Brentwood in Essex, near where my grandparents used to live. Everything was very modern and clean and tidy but a little bit boring. The campsite was located in a pine forrest, minutes from the beach which was accessed by taking a short walk through the forrest. I had never considered Sweden to be the type of country to visit and have a beach holiday but my impression of the country has been altered by this stop off. There was a large sandy beach and the North Sea water was fairly warm which was surprising as we were pretty much level with Newcastle Upon Tyne. The only problem was the jelly fish which made swimming a little hazardous. With sun burn threatening we went walking in the forrest. We stumbledacrosss a train goods yard with abandoned rolling stock and after investigating this we went into town for a couple of extremely expensive drinks. We met a drunk drama teacher and on the way back to the tents visited a Swedish nightclub which was playing appalling music in a mock beach environment (you needed to have been there to really get the picture!).

We stayed in Ãngelholm for a couple of days during which time we selected and sent back to England quite a few items we had been carrying. We were finding that we had over-packed which meant we had no spare space to carry anything like food or anything else we picked up along the way and that packing up every day was becoming a real chore, like one of the puzzles that used to be set in Krypton Factor! Having left Ãngelholm we then continued north up the coast and crossed into Norway on 12th June. It was extremely hot in Sweden, in the mid thirties, and we found the tarmac on the motorway was actually melting in places and causing black tarmac tire marks to be drawn across the carriageway. It was a relief, particularly when wearing the bike gear, to find the weather a little cooler once we entered Norway. We had a good experience in Sweden and it is certainly a country that I would like to vist again more extensively.

Written by Tom

Copenhagen, Denmark - 910 miles from London

2006-06-10T11:58:00.000+01:00

We are currently sat in an internet cafe in the town centre. We spent Thursday night in Northern Germany and left early in the morning for the 300 mile journey to Denmark which we entered yesterday evening by taking a short ferry crossing from Puttgarden in Germany to Rødbyhavn which sits in a cluster of islands in Eastern Denmark. The ride here was fairly exhasting, on motorways most of the way and oblivious to the time or even what day it was we got caught in the Friday night rush hour outside Hamburg. Once in Demark we were fortunate to spent the night in a very pictureque campsite on the way to Copenhagen, but had to take shelter early in the tents due to the swarms of mosquitoes that descended upon us due to our waterside location. We carried onto Copenhagen this morning and we are planning to continue on from here today into Sweden via the impressive 10.5 mile Oresund tunnel / bridge. We haven't spent long enough in Denmark to get an accurate impression, but what we have seen seems suprisingly shabby but not in an unpleasant way.

The view from the tents last night:

Written by Tom.

Ghent, Belgium - 276 miles from London

2006-06-06T11:52:00.000+01:00

After we had left De Panne we headed further into Belgium and happened across Ghent pretty much by accident. Wandering around the town we were struck by what a lovely place it was; it seemed to be very relaxed and this is probably attributable to the fact that there is a large universtity there. In fact it turned out that Ghent University is Belgium's equivalent of Oxford or Cambridge and certainly the place had some of the feel of both those cities. Since the weather was so good and the town so welcoming, we felt no inclination to leave the place in a hurry, a decision made easier by our finding a small funky hotel on a converted barge on one of Ghent's many canals.

Written by Peter.

Day 1 – De Panne, Belgium – 161 miles from London

2006-06-05T23:27:00.000+01:00

Driving north from Calais up the coast we stumbled across De Panne on a mission to find petrol on day one, which also happened to be a bank holiday in Belgium. De Panne is a fairly smart but clinical feeling seaside resort in Belgium which is also home to a theme park called Plopsaland. We gave Plopsaland a miss, but having no pre-booked accommodation for day one (or any other day on the trip for that matter) we were very pleased to find a centrally located campsite where we set up camp for the night. Once this was done a seaside bar served us well for a few hours. Back at the campsite we were completely perplexed by a metal bar which was deliberately positioned right over the toilet seat in an outside toilet.

Calais

2006-06-05T14:30:00.000+01:00

Calais, France's busiest passenger port with a population of approximately 80,000 and ferry business dominating this town. Badly bombed during World War II, there is very little to see here.
Yes, we're on our way! On schedule, we left this morning at 08.30 and after some emotional goodbyes caught the 12.15 ferry from Dover. Briefly stopping in Calais for essential cheese and wine supplies we have headed to a campsite for the night. More to follow ...

London

2006-05-24T21:10:00.000+01:00

We're in London and this is the first travel diary entry. London - a small settlement in the United Kingdom, a country slightly smaller than Oregon Source: CIA World Factbook. It's so good here that we've stayed for many years (Tom all his life in fact)! To be honest, we haven't set off on our travels yet. We are currently busy formulating an exit plan which involves among other things: studying the route; learning a bit of basic mechanics; buying provisions from the local merchants; and having to work hard at the day jobs as lawyers for the privilege. The view you are looking at is out of a window in Tate Modern (a London art gallery), looking north across the River Thames. Find us on the map.

General Update

2006-05-23T13:36:00.000+01:00

We are still on schedule to leave on 5th June and, since our last entry, we have decided to leave the decision to carry on the journey Australia bound into Iran and beyond until we reach Almaty (in Kazakhstan). At that time we will know whether we will be able to obtain a visa for Iran and whether we can afford to carry on. We are therefore applying for a visa authorisation number for Iran now (we would pick up the visa in Central Asia if we are successful getting the authorisation number) and we have sent off our applications for the carnet (the import / export licence required if we are going to go further than the Iranian border) and will ask the RAC to process these if we need the carnet. The cost of the administration for each carnet is well over the price of an around the world air ticket, so we need to think very carefully whether we are prepared to make this financial commitment. We have also spent some time looking at the route home from Turkmenistan, which is where we would need to turn back if we didn’t proceed into Iran. This route looks possible, but our main concern would be the weather which would be getting very cold at the time that we would need to head back into Russia.
We are doing well with our visa applications. We now have visas for the Russian Federation, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. We are applying for our visa for Pakistan next week and we will be applying for visas for Turkmenistan and Tajikistan when we are in Almaty. We have also obtained a permit to travel the Pamir Highway (see last entry re. the Pamir Highway).

On the home front, I left my job on 12th May (10 days ago) and had a very nice send off at a local pub (see picture (right) of me and the business affairs group). Peter left work last Friday and has a removal firm at his flat today. The removal firm are moving what he isn’t taking on the trip into a storage facility near where his parents live in Cirencester. All being well, he is due to complete the sale on his flat in the next couple of days. Things are not going well at all with the flat I have rented out. First of all there was leak from the flat above which caused £700 worth of damage to the ceiling and then the problems with the foxes materialised again (the picture below was taken by Tony, the porter, and is of one of the fox cubs that was living under the flat). The foxes were causing a smell so bad that the tenants threatened to move out and at one point it even looked as if they were preparing a legal case against me. On top of all this, as a result of the foxes living under the flat the place became infested with fox fleas and an insect called a Wharf Borer which apparently lives in wood in the foundations of buildings (see: http://www.pest-watch.co.uk/wharf_borer.html ).
After the flat was treated three times by Rentakil, had numerous visits from different building contractors to seal all the air holes leading to the foundations of the building and three visits by decorators to fix the ceiling, the problems now seem to be under control and the tenants seem to be calming down. If all of this wasn’t bad enough, I found out last week that a window in the loft in the house I own in Stoke-on-Trent had been letting in water which has been seeping through the ceiling into the tenant’s bedroom causing the ceiling to sag and look like it was going to fall in. The quote I have had from a building contractor put the cost the reinstatement work at £4000. This includes putting a new ceiling into the bedroom and redecorating the loft and bedroom. Unfortunately the tenant in Stoke is a night worker and sleeps during the day. As a result of the reinstatement work he may need to take over two week off work. The cost of the work to both properties and the compensation that I have had to pay both tenants is considerable and has come at a time when I find myself with no income (having just left work). Everything that has happened with both properties seems like unbelievably bad luck at the most inconvenient time. It has meant that I have had to focus most of my attention on these problems whilst blindly putting one foot in front of the other to get the many things to do with the trip done. At times it has felt as all of this has been some sort of a test. Hopefully the worst is now past and I can focus my attention saying goodbye to friends and family and finishing off the preparations for the trip.
This entry was written by Tom.

Potential problems with passage through central Asia

2006-02-26T09:41:00.000Z

One of the most crucial parts of the whole trip is the planning our route through from Russia to India. At present we would ideally be wanting to cross from Russia to Kazakhstan at Semey (the far Eastern corner of Kazakhstan). We are hoping to obtain our visas for Russia and Kazakstan before we leave London. After that we are intending to head down through the Eastern part of Kazakhstan to Almaty (the main financial city). When we are in Almaty we hope to sort out all our visas for Krgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan through a tour agent / fixer we have found there. When we leave Kazakhstan we are intending to head through Krgyzstan and then enter Tajikistan. Once in Tajikistan we will travel the Pamir Highway and thence travel through Uzbekistan into Turkmenistan. We then will travel down the Eastern part of Iran into Pakistan and then India.

Watching the news we are increasingly worried about the situation in Iran. With all the talk of imposing sanctions against Iran if they continue developing their nuclear capability (for nuclear weapons as the US seems to think) there is the chance that the situation in Iran could get so bad that either we can’t get visas when we are in the CIS states, or we don’t feel too comfortable in travelling through the country.

If we can’t get into Iran then we run the risk of being stuck in the CIS region. If this does happen then we would have only a few options open to us to get to India. We could try to head through Afghanistan to Kabul and from Kabul go across the Khyber Pass to Pakistan. This would obviously mean us travelling through the Northern part of Afghanistan which is not advisable. We had thought that another option was to go through the Wakhran corridor which borders Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We did consider taking this route at one time, but have dismissed after seeing pictures of the 7000 foot high mountains (almost certainly with no roads) and after hearing that the area is used as drug running route from Pakistan into Afghanistan. This leaves our only other alternative land route which is to travel through China. We haven’t really looked into this too much, but from the research we’ve done on this we think that we need to do a multitude of things. These things include taking a Chinese motorcycle test, registering the bike in China, putting Chinese number plates on the bikes and the hiring a guide who would be with us at all time. Not only is this going to be a nightmare to organise, but we think that is going to cost us an arm and a leg. At this stage we’re not sure that we can really afford this or even organise it; certainly this is not something we have even started to look at in any sort of detail.

The upshot of all of this is that if we cannot get into Iran (or don’t feel comfortable in travelling through Iran) we may run the risk of getting stranded in the CIS area. If this does happen then we may have to consider flying to India or cutting the trip short in Central Asia. Neither of us are to enamoured at the thought of flying our bikes to India. It would really defeat the whole point of doing a motorbike trip to Australia, even more so as we are already going to have to either fly or ship our bikes from India, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh and then from Singapore to Australia. At the moment we don’t know what will happen, but we hope that things don’t get stirred up so much in Iran that we can’t get in.

This entry written by Peter.
Picture (top left): Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at a conference in Tehran, 'The World without Zionism.'

Picture (middle right): the mountainous Wakhran Coridoor

Recent threads (with some good news) from Horizons Unlimited about Iranian visas and travel through Afghanistan and Pakistan:

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/Forum33/HTML/000374.html http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000744.html

The truth...

2006-02-22T03:08:00.000Z

Upping sticks and downing tools

2006-02-19T18:59:00.001Z

After a tough two weeks of decorating, moving my stuff to my brother's flat, sorting out a host of problems including foxes under the flat, leaking pipes and mysterious foul smells, I managed to rent the flat out and move in with my father in Crouch End. I then handed in my notice at work the next day.

Many thanks to Peter (who put in a monumental effort with the move and the decorating), No Handed Dan (for his masking skills), Richard (who did a great job on the ceiling and the bath), Francis (for the storage space) and of course my Dad for putting me up and putting up with me until June.
This entry written by Tom - more pictures in Tom's photo gallery

Peter takes a tumble, but picks himself up and carries on

2005-12-10T12:45:00.000Z

Pictures (above and below) of damage to the fuel tank, cylinder head cover and engine bars of Peter's motorbike. On a wintry Saturday lunchtime in Rochford, Essex Peter was on his way to play rugby. Despite riding at only 30mph when going round a reasonably sharp right hander his rear wheel slipped and the bike slid from under him. He had a chance to brush himself down, establish that he was fine (other than a small rip in his trousers) and check that no other vehicles were coming; thankfully the road was empty and so there was no chance of him being hit by oncoming traffic. A local resident (who was incidentally a bike owner himself) had seen the whole thing and was able to help Peter pick himself and the bike up and carry on his way. At the end of the day Peter was more battered and bruised from the rugby match than he was when he came off the motorbike.

This website's creator...

2005-11-01T23:40:00.000Z

And in the beginning, there was Ben and his Apple Mac. There was also Eliza, but she was asleep at the time.