Well that was a lovely little ride

Even in the late afternoon haze as Korea appeared out of the sea it was looking good.
Korea is everything Russia isn’t, it’s polite it’s friendly, it’s helpful, efficient, smiley, and best of all its in English, the signs and everyone speaks it to some degree. Right from getting off the ferry it’s all so organized, straightforward, logical, achievable and our situation isn’t even that simple, my Canadian friend is putting his bike on a truck to a crating agent to have it flown to the states there by avoiding the riding paperwork and remaining in transit and I have to get temporary insurance and plates and permission to ride in Korea and it is done painlessly and professionally, I even get given some money back cus I pre paid too much in Russia. All this with a bow and a hand shake no shouting, no pointing and demands no ‘no’s’. I'm even allowed to use the customs internet cus I haven’t checked it in 3 days, I go straight to the reply from the shipping company, I have been granted permission to put my bike on their ship for a bargain $500. Everything is wonderful I’m escorted to the ferry to unload my bike having cleared immigration and got all my personal, motorcycle and riding documentation completed.
Its dark now and a new country and night time never my favourite combination. The Canadians bike is put on a truck and he is leaving with it, so it was a very quick and distracted goodbye when we thought we would be sharing a room and a few beers tonight. But his company arrived at the right time and it’s only the unexpected efficiency of the country that has meant we are going our separate ways so soon. I suppose now that will be my last chance meeting with another overlander. I'm leaving that lifestyle behind, for a while. So off I go on my own again totally on my own, the negativity I carried with me in Russia has been replaced with respect, gratitude, and gets this, even enjoyment. Out of the port I ride, with forklift drivers, and customs officials waving as I leave.
Right outside on top of a hi rise is a motel sign and I can read it cus it says ‘motel’ in English so I ride round the corner and park undercover and am greeted by the check in guy who shows me exactly where to park and then taken to the reception, he, remarkably just assumes I want a room, unlike turning up at a hotel or guest house in Russia where they wonder what you want.
‘How much?’
’40,000 won’
Shit that sounds a lot but it its £22. Ok I’ll take it
I'm given a toothbrush and razor and take the life up , I'm not expecting much, its gorgeous, big TV massive bed, air conditioning clean and spacious, no built in soviet misery here. It’s wonderful. There are shampoo bottles in the bathroom and lotions and moisturizers and all sorts of things, kettle and fridge the great thing about being deprived such things is now I appreciate them all the more.
Out of the window I can see the ferry I've just got off of and the town I’m about to go into
, Out to the street I can look around me without fear of falling down an open drain. There is all sorts of cool stuff, dried fish and octopus, chillies and seaweed. I try to get a sim card but the Korean phone system seems unique to them, they don’t even have Sims in their phones I don’t really understand it but I accept it .I know in this polite helpful country if it were possible it would be done. I find the international ATM and it works and dispensed large quantities of large denomination notes with very large numbers on them but they too are easy to read and understand. So now I have money I completely wuss out and instead of going for something local and traditional I go get burger and fries. Everyone smiles, the manners, the politeness the gratitude for my business, it’s all so refreshing a smile generates a smile I want to stop people just to tell them now much I love their country.
And just to top it off back in my room I have English movies and free porn.
Funny how this morning knowing I have to ride across the country I don’t have a trace of butterflies, I don’t even have a map. Just some names of towns to look for and some road numbers. It’s a lovely temperature and there are so many sign posts that it’s hard to pay attention to the road. The road runs south alongside the beach, its clean and welcoming and not a bottle in site, there is however along its entire length an impenetrable fence with bard wire coiled along the top, apparently to keep out the North Koreans. Who might swim south, so guarded gateways are the only way onto the beach. There is a strong military present; I don’t know if it’s just manoeuvres or daily duties, but helicopters fly over head, I find myself singing the mash theme inside my helmet. There are army convoys and lots of check points I'm not stopped , and some now they don’t look that intimidating with their painted faces and thick glasses they just look like dirty bell boys. Not really fighting machines.
There is not a single bit of doubt in my mind, the route is straight forward and well signposted I would like a map but I don’t need one.
I'm riding slowly enjoying the road, obeying the limits, as do all other drivers, I would like to ride around more, see the country but I have to remember the bike is sick, and just cus its running now don’t mean it will continue to, it’s great to be enjoying the ride and be stress free, let’s not put any in the equation, let’s stick with plan A, I still get to go coast to coast.
It’s hard to find something that would sum up Korea in a photo, something to stand my bike in front to say I rode it to Korea, but that’s the only complaint I have,
my helmet is worry free, the ride if wonderful this is how it should be, not fretting about all that’s to come and everything under the sun.
But of course once ya get the feel of how the road and regulations work your mind is free to wonder, and It occurs to me I could get a flight on Sunday and because I cross the international date line I can be in Denver still on Sunday for my daughter’s birthday party, it’s only a thought for a minute because as soon as it occurs to me I know, I don’t think, I just know with absolute certainty that that is what I'm going to do. I've ridden as far as I can, without carnets and without huge freight costs and with a bike that’s now using more oil than petrol.
I stop at a sort of food hall the toilets are clean, the queues are orderly, and no one pays me any attention my bike doesn’t even get a glance, I’m not stared at, I order noodle soup I can read the menu I get service with a smile.
I ride over the mountains I even got to lean my squared off and mutated tyre over onto the precipice edge.
It’s a densely populated country, the towns are large and close together, but the road and in-filstructure is perfectly adequate. Everything functions. I go past ski resorts with hotels everywhere, no hint of snow yet, not like a Mongolian August.
Bikes aren’t allowed to use the motorways but that’s fine by me I’m happy to use the truck free main roads. And town by town I run down my list and across to the west coast as the sun is going down.

Ok I've had more adventurous rides and more challenging, and all that, but what I really needed was a pleasurable one and that’s exactly what I got. After all this really is the end of the trip and I've totally run out of superlatives I want uneventful.
It’s a big industrial port and all I have is a name of my man who I've been emailing. I stop to ask a security guard, not only does he speak English he calls my man and gives me the phone
‘Ah Mr. Field, I've been expecting you all day’
‘Sorry I've been riding’
‘I suggest you get a hotel tonight and I will meet you at 9am tomorrow,’ my thoughts exactly. Mr. Security then draws me a map to the hotel that it is recommended I stay the night in.
In this one I get a complete goody bag at reception and the room has a balcony and massive TV, DVD player and microwave and computer, it’s just so lavish. But with sincere apologies I'm told the restaurant is closed. So I wonder down the street and find an empty Chinese the turn off their TV and open up for me, I’m given a fixed meal and help myself to beer out of the fridge, they feed me up, every dish I empty I’m offered a refill not to charge me more just to make sure I'm fed to my likening, these too ladies totally look after me. One of the ladies shows me she has a tattoo on her back too. They don’t speak English but they don’t have to. I know I'm welcome and I just can’t stop smiling in this country.
I get some supplies I have to do laundry, I wash jeans socks and t shirt and hang it on my balcony using my fire escape emergency absailing rope as a washing line, probably frowned upon but so are dirty undies.
I have a busy day I'm up at 7. My clothes are still wet I put them on anyway. Then I go through my panniers and the noodles I bought from England and never used once are thrown out alone with Ukraine rice, Russian tins of salmon, Kazakhstan baked beans, and all the emergency food I have carried all this way, I throw it all out. And my bike is loaded with bike cloths, and all the things I don’t need any more, and some things I do but forget to take out like marmite. It’s amazing how my panniers swallow up so much stuff now I don’t have all this space consuming food that wasn’t consumed. Next time I’ll know different, I can travel so much lighter, I'm not sure I’ll even take a stove next time, and all those spares, 2 inner tubes that take up so much room, I never got so much as a puncture let alone gauged tyres and ripped tubes.
And I'm off, the last 3 miles of the trip still using the last of my tank full of cheap Russian petrol. To the terminal where hundreds of new cars wait in lines to be loaded onto massive ships.
Security come and greets me. And insist I come into their break room for a coffee. I would really rather stand in the sun in my wet jeans and t shirt but I can’t refuse their hospitality, Mr. man arrives right on time and I'm instructed to ride my bike through the barrier and into the compound of a million shiny cars, the ferries, ships whatever they are hold 6000 cars and one dodgy motorbike. The leave everyday all over the world. That’s a lot of cars. There is a brilliant model of one in a glass case with the side cut out to show the multiple levels inside, it holds trains too, I want to take a photo but I'm a tourist in a profession logistics operation and just taking one of my bikes before I leave it, causes busy men to impatiently stand around.

I have to show the loader how to start the bike, I keep the jump wire a secret and show him how to bump it Mongolian style, and it doesn’t work. Well you get the idea. I pat my bike good buy, another too brief parting of ways; see ya in Southampton, in November. I pad lock my lid onto the seat and without time for a second glance I'm taken to a big office where the prepared paperwork is gone over with me, and juice is bought in for me to drink, then I'm driven to the customs broker, and older man happy to see me, I have the docs he needs and he quickly and efficiently deals with it all. Whilst coffee is bought in for us and then offers to take me to the bus station.
It’s a long drive but he insists and after he had sorted out my express ticket to Seoul and when I shake his hand with both of my hands and all my gratitude he giggles.
God I need a wee there’s a lot of beverages in this export business. All this has taken 1 ½ hours and it’s done. I'm told how lucky I am that these requests are seldom granted permission. I feel lucky I fell honoured, I feel happy and relaxed and proud of my achievement and when I sit down on that bus and we drive past the paddy fields on the express hi way. I push myself back in the seat with an incredible feeling of well being, relief and general elation.
My trainers have been on the way out for a while in fact I only bought them along for the Sweden rock festival back in June and they are still with me, and they stink, but now with wet socks inside them it’s pushed them over the edge. They are offensive, I have to get rid of them but that means taking them off in a shop to try the new trainers to be on. It’s going to be embarrassing. Another tricky operation I have to consider
I call my daughter and tell her as soon as I get to Seoul and find a toilet I will be booking and flight and she will be the first to know when I'm going to be there, she pointed out that actually I will be the first to know,
And that’s pretty much what happened, I met my friend who I first met in Mongolia, (be warned don’t say ‘come visit if ya ever in the area’ cus I bloody will)
we find trainers and I put my damp and minging socks along with my rancid trainers in a sealed plastic bag and throw them out, they were the ones I wore on TV, no wonder they are knackered, I've landed on my feet allot in them, now they are left in Seoul. (There’s a joke there somewhere but I'm tired of trying to find it) I book a flight for Sunday just like I knew I always would.
There is the most amazing overlander network and with the help of horizons unlimted.com it still amazes me how close nit and supportive everyone is. I got an email from a Fin I met in Kazakhstan who rode his BMW back home from working in Korea he had heard I was going to Korea and sent me some good routes to ride, unfortunately I didn’t get the email till the bike was shipped, I got txt from a guy from Grimsby currently in Bangkok cus a Russian shipper wondered how I was getting on and asked that I call him, he said he thought I was a very brave man. I got forwarded emails from helpers and people who know people. We’re all out there doing our thing and sometimes struggling, always learning and occasionally in a positional to help. It’s been a trip of people’s generosity, from a bed and a home stay on the first night in Germany to the ex pat English teachers spare room on the last night. I didn’t realize it was a life on the road that bought me all that until suddenly I'm travelling in airports again, the more usual way to get from A to B but you miss all you might C on the way.
The last 36 hours were partying in Seoul,
guest listed to the British embassy bar, where I meet people I have nothing in common with but nationality, the main topic of conversation is the dentistry deadline, there dental benefits are ending at the end of the month and everyone is getting work done before the subsidized oral benefits end. It’s a world I can’t get a grip on.
My last day ended with an invite to a girly night out, now that’s how to end a bike trip, going bar hopping with 7 girls and I'm the only guy, that’s the great thing about knowing someone in a strange country, without her it would have ended alone in a hotel being a tourist, but not this trip, not this time. That’s how to celebrate 15000 miles 12 countries, 10 time zones, and 6 ferries all on an £800 eBay bike
Jobs a good 'un, now just gotta cross another 9 time zones in 24 hours and go back in time via the international date line and I got another party to go to. An 8th birthday party,

Sitting on the plane it really sinks in that it’s over, it’s finished. From a spring of lists and the preparation, to the parting of ways on a dock south of the Korean capital. I won’t see my bike again until its stands upon Southampton dock.
I've met riders who have done more and spent more, taken longer, and ridden harder, but on such a small budget I managed a long time dream whilst dreaming up new dreams.
I have delays in Tokyo and LA where I try to hold onto what I’ve been doing, I look at the Hollywood sign as we come into land and wonder if it was all made up like a movie I've just been living.
When the photos flash across my screensaver like they flash across my memory Monklet is captured smiling
When he’s taken off the bike for the last time monklet smiles
When he’s packed in a holdall he smiles

Down in the hold I expect he smiling
God, what have we just done?
I said at the beginning I would try to smile like monklet at whatever came my way, Russia took my smile but Korea bought it back. What a place to end the trip.
Let’s go see if I can make a little face that looks a bit like mine smile.

The days and nights of nyet

What’s this all about then? Not really riding I suppose it s about not riding. It’s about sitting in a little room with a big view
and possibly for the first time not being able to see my bike, it’s locked up, but on the road outside this hotel. Every morning when I descend 2 floors to go and get my coffee I look out the window of the cafe and check it’s still there and it is.
I've never researched any part of this trip any more than I have researched the next leg
Mainly due to free stolen internet connection and noting else to do and also cus this was never in my plan I need to figure it out a bit. Korea? Shit I never even considered it, never, all I know about Korea I got from M*A*S*H. I research ferries, currency, maps and routes insurances, customs, carnets, regulations, shit until I get off the ferry I don’t even know what side of the road they drive on. But I've utilized the internet like never before I’ve even found pictures of the ferry I think, I hope I'm going to be getting it to get there.
So I left my little comfort zone with a dried out tent rapped tighter than it has ever been rapped before and a thermo rest compressed tighter than a passenger in a Mongolian minivan. This is all in rehearsal of getting as much luggage secured on my bike, under lock and key assuming the bike is accepted to get on the ro-ro ferry to Southampton, the authorization from Mr. big is still pending well it may be granted by now but my internet connection is ... well I don’t have one, I'm going to Korea anyway,
Last night I read that only international ATM’s in Korea will dispense cash on a foreign card. So that was a nice little worry for the night.
I have no US $ left so first thing Monday morning having by now completely forgotten how shit it is to get up to go to work, and immersed in my little travel world, the worries and what ifs the problems that come with a transient life style and not the first consideration how much worse life would be if I was actually working for a living. I go find cash machines to get money out as opposed to going to work to actually earn the stuff although that reality is looming, the first one offers me dollars or rubbles, brilliant except it has no dollars to dispense, I get Russian money and take it to babushka on the street holding a dollar sign and she rummages around under her skirt and produces some dollars and stuffs my rubbles... well I'm not exactly sure where. There are pigeons all around and 2 benches occupied by homeless drunks, bearded and filthy, its strange now international money transfers are going on in the street right next to them. One of the benches is actually free the drunk has fallen off in his night and lies on the pavement beside it.
I want more money, I need more money for all the costs I will incur both sides of the Sea of Japan (or is it the China Sea, or just the pacific? Can’t wait to see a proper world map.) Before I reach an international ATM so I chance my luck and stick my card in another hole and my series of numbers again and out pops more currency. I love this.
Back to babushka who is beginning to smell a rat but it’s just the sleeping tramp next to us.
Ok job done pack up, I actually get a visa registration from the hotel this time. My first this visit. I'm ready to go, I know there are better ways out of town but I want a photo of my bike above the harbour with the unfinished mega bridge in the back ground. Its and amazing structure and I can’t wait to see a photo of the finished project, I have no need to return to see it.

Being on a peninsula it’s not too tricky to get off, I contemplate one more picture but the Vladivostok sign but it would only be staged and the bike is all clean now, I took it to a power wash place, gave him a hefty back hander and he sprayed it with something that if the bike colour were not impregnated plastic than I think it would have taken the paint off. It took off a lot of the grime and if it had been done properly it would look amazing but only the part of the wheels that were showing got sprayed an trying to get him to do the inside of the mud guards was painful, it’s so shiny where the magic toxic spray was blasted but so the same where it wasn’t.
The thing is the trip has become a succession of worries, I wake in the night and the consideration begins, the formulation of a plan, yeah great may be things run smoothly cus it’s all been thought about , but I would like to actually enjoy the moment instead of considering the next move, money is changed, registration is received, the bike is oiled, pumped and ready to go, appropriate photo is taken fuel is found, as is the right road and then next right road, it’s a tricky little place to get to this tiny village that happens to have a port that takes freight and hopefully me to Korea.,

I'm here at the port where the ferry goes from, I got here 36 hours early in case there was a problem, there was a problem, I was here too early , they won’t sell me a ticket the customs lady is not even working today ‘nyet’ then ‘no’ in English says the miserable old bag behind the glass. Like I don’t know what nyet means, ‘no what? No ferry? No ticket? No fuckin what? Don’t just say nyet you sour old boot.’ But nyet is the answer to everything I try and ask. I go find a place to stay the price is outrageous, I'm too tire to argue, always a struggle always another hurdle,

Get a room then with cooler clothes on go back to the building which I will refer to as the terminal, now I have the assistance of a boy breathing vodka fumes all over me, just because he has 5 words of English the babushka delegates her negativity to him, seems to think he would get me to understand why she won’t sell me a ticket in fact why the answer to all my questions is no. Me time you time, he keeps saying pointing aggressively at a clock this me time no you time, ‘oh Fuck off boy’ I go get supplies I haven’t eaten and somehow it’s become 3pm. a guy looks interestingly at my bike like everyone has from Manningtree to Siberia and when I come out of the shop with sausage, bread and cheese his wife or daughter, (he is either lucky or younger than he looks) speaks English and asks the usual questions but today the answer is I left 100days ago today 20,000kms yes all the way from England. Perhaps you could help me. And they follow me to the thing that isn’t a terminal and once again the babushka is interrogated, I mean why the fuck is she here if there is no boat and she won’t sell tickets? Make the bitch do something useful. Once again she explains something in Russian but this time I get the translated information I need, come back tomorrow is the gist of it, I kind of guessed that but now I know for sure. The girl of unknown relationship to the man asks me, cus she cannot understand how and why I would come so far without the native language, how do I manage why do I bother? I don’t really have an adequate explanation, I didn’t mean to come here, I didn’t expect to be here, if I said for fun she would know I was lying , yes I'm tired yes its nearly over, no I'm not always alone. It’s not the sort of description of a journey that would make someone envious, I'm sure she left pitying me, well that’s a pity. after all this, the roads I ride I don’t see, I'm just contemplating the next move, it will probably continue in Korea until the bike has left my position and I can sit in a bar in Seoul clutching an e ticket and knowing it’s all over and then perhaps I can paint a picture of achievement and for-fillment cus for now those things are alluding me.

I walked the causeway then down to the water, at least when I sit on the shore and drink a can of cheap beer I can indulge in the luxury of leaving the can on the ground and walking away, across the endless line of plastic bags and discarded bottles of vodka water and all liquids in-between, my careful disposal won’t make any difference to anything, when in Rome trash the place like the locals do.
I walk on to a kebab shop that had no kebabs I've really had enough of Russia one more person says no to my perfectly reasonable and undemanding request.
so walked back with another beer from another shop don’t want to buy from the same shop they may think I have a drinking problem ,in a humid sweat to find that my second choice, the hotel cafe did not sell food either she indicated walking back the way I came but I'm all hot a sweaty now so lidless and just in a mussel shirt and for the first time this trip with a lovely little 2 beer buzz I ride back across the causeway to the cafe where briefly the no and cants stop, at last a good experience, Little things like a willing helper at the restaurant are nice touches, he goes through my point it book with me and I get fish bread, salad and soup and it’s oh so cheap in fact they added it up wrong so I correct them and pay the extra. And the ride back was even better, 2 miles, less than that, but the sun was going down behind a rocky islands and the sea was lapping like it does and I love to ride lidless and buzzed.
So next morning a new packing strategy is needed I have to have a bag to take on board, still in my discarding anything I don’t need mode I use the last of my washing powder and hang my underwear on my mirrors and put on my wet but clean t shirt.
when the cleaner barges into my room without so much as a knock I decide it’s time to either head butt her or leave, she obviously doesn’t use the nose I so desperately want to spread across her miserable face judging by the stench of the toilet. When I travelled India I would come across screaming westerners who teddy was out thrown out of the pram and whose dummy lie next to it. they had been there too long it was time for them to leave India, it’s a trying place. It’s time for me to leave Russia. I'm trying to but guess what? the bikes electrical fault has made another appearance after a month’s absents once again the start button does nothing. Oh great. I use my auxiliary live wire from the battery and touch it to the solenoid and I have contact and ignition. So from the electrical terminal to the not really a terminal. Everyone is at dinner, I stand around. Behind that guard, behind that door is a toilet.
‘Toilet?’
‘Nych’
Nych nych, bloody nych say nych one more time mother fucker I dare you, I double dare you. I go piss up a wall. Then Mrs. No is back from lunch, she sticks her hand through he window, ‘what? What does that mean?’
Passport
Then she wants 250,
250 what? Dollars,
‘Nych’
‘Credit card? ‘
Nych rublerleies’
Every word you say annoys me, I give her money she indicates I go into the port, and I get on bike start it with my jump wire but the guard wont life the barrier,
‘Nych’
Oh what the ports full is it? And I have to wait before I can entre.
Some Koreans turn up with polite intrigue, questions and conversation and I know I'm going to like Korea. I share my dislike for this country with one of the men, he wholehearted agrees with me.
A woman in casual dress and shopping bag comes and asks for my documents, ‘and who are you? A passerby?’
I'm waved inside the port without my documents, I rode around the only people about seem to be deaf mutes. I find a lady in uniform who blanks me; I turn my bike a round shout at her, ‘HELLO?’ ....‘HEY!’
Totally blanked, there are signs in English telling you what not to do, no smoking $30 fine no rubbish $30 fine but no signs telling you what to do. Customs? Immigration? Nych
Fuck this I try and ride on the ferry, finally a reaction
‘Wait it will not leave till 7 o clock now is 2pm.’ Ok fine that’s all I need,
So I park my bike in the sun, sit in the shade and put some Motorhead on my iPod and sit fuming with attitude. Ready to explode. I'm so ready to get on that boat and wave good bye to Russia with one fifth of my hand.
And then, long overdue and so needed an angle arrives, the form of an overland motorcycle with a Canadian on it. And he knows who I am, met the Germans I shared with in Mongolia and passed on their best wishes, he’s been on the road for 16 months. Is equally burnt out on Russia, and the hours pass, and the conversation flows, we are of same age, same lone traveller observations and feelings, and humour, nothing is a problem anymore. It’s not halved its diminished. We get covered in dust as the ferry in unloaded of Korean imports, and diggers drag race off the dock.
His trip is over too, just fly from to Korea to San Francisco and ride back home up to Canada; I just ride across Korea and to a port on the west coast and may be, my bike will be home ward bound too.
But there is a problem, Mrs. shopping bag has at least returned my documents but due to an Englishman making such a fuss 2 weeks ago with refusal to pay certain fees now all payments, bike freight, my boarding pass, Korean customs fee, disembarking fee, compulsory insurance, and carnet, deposit have to be paid up front, but they won’t take credit cards, or rubles, I'm in fuckin Russia what do you want?
‘US $’ oh for fucks sake. ‘672 of them.’ After an hour or more of dealing with this idiot boy and a lovely translator, it’s announced
‘So it would seem you will not be getting on this ferry’
oh yes I will you can’t just make up the rules, costs and currency as you go along, I offer you payment in several forms but you won’t accept it. I to ATM get more rubbles, and when the boy pulls a $100 out of his shiny trouser pocket I take it from him, with that and my emergency dollars I can make the amount needed. It’s painful, I take his name and mobile number cus he has not heard the end of this. It’s done, receipts are stamped invoices are signed; bill of laden is issued, fright paid. Its progress but not as we know it. Now the Canadian has to go through the same procedure. I am out of currency my dollars were for emergencies but when it looks like I won’t be boarding the ferry it becomes an emergency. More hours pass and just when my emergency noodles are about to be taken from the panniers and cooked we are asked to board. The only two vehicles on the entire ferry. 4 polite helpful Koreans in red boiler suits ask where they should fasten the straps to secure my bike, it so refreshing, whilst bulshy Russian officials scream for my passport. Look, I've been here for 24 hours before I entered the port, I've been in the port for 8hours sitting around, now is the most important part of the day to supervise the securing of my bike for its journey to Korea, now shut the fuck up and let me un load my bag, then you can see my fuckin passport. Oh yes it’s so time for me to leave.
‘Go to customs’
Do you realize how flawed your system is? All the Kalashnikovs drugs, lucky Siberian tiger foot charms and other contra band is in the panniers, which you haven’t even looked at, I have just the fleece and toothbrush in the bag that you will be x-raying.
So bikes and monklet are once again left in the care of the unknown and my bag is x rayed and I get the 6th stamp next to my Russian visa. I am free to leave. An even number, this isn’t good evening, this is good bye,
‘Have and good trip please visit Russia again’
‘Nych’

The ferry is Korean run, I'm greeted on board with a bow and a smile, you are the motorcyclist, your room is this way, and this will be the restaurant, wow. What a difference a smile makes a polite, happy helpful culture. I knew it; I knew I wasn’t tired of travelling I was tired of the country I was travelling in. Everything is good again even the guy that collects the dirty plates loves his job and accepts the tray joyously. People smile and say hello, and I just realized I am going to Korea, I was simply getting out of Russia but now there is a destination to look forward to. A new country I never even thought I would end up in with my bike. I sit on the top deck all to myself, I’m going to Korea and everything is ok again.
When I spit out the dummy monklet smiles
When the problem is terminal, monklet smiles
When I swear into my voice recorder he keeps on smiling
And when once again he is overlooked by customs he keeps his mouth shut and smiles
And when I realize the problem was the country not the journey I'm smiling again and it feels so good.

It aint over till fat Monklet sings

Well if you want to split hairs then technically that last post was pre Trans Siberian hi way and this post is post trans Siberian hi way. 2165 kms that’s what the sign said. Before I left Chita I remembered to take my supplies out of the fridge the tomatoes had frozen but they will probably travel better that way, maybe, I diligently wrote down all the major city names in Cyrillic so that I could recognized them in a glance should a signpost grace my path at a fork or roundabout. I need not have bothered. I decided to take the same way out of the city that I came in, I knew it was not the quickest but I also knew getting out was always harder than getting in,(there were once a generation of Siberian inhabitants who would agree with that, I think) I stopped to treat my engine to some 98 octane fuel and then managed to get completely lost and rode round endless soviet housing blocks and onto dirt roads and 30 miles later was at the beginning of a hi way that began 10kms away from where I started, that was a waste of super power fuel. And there was the sign, in Cyrillic for Khabarovsk. I'm still unsure how much of this road will be paved, and how readily available fuel is. But it’s still early so here we go. Its cold, the engine seems to like the cool air and I have to put on my proper gloves, no more posing in fingerless gloves and I’m wearing my scarf as opposed to my bandanna. I prefer the fingerless gloves cus of the dexterity I get from them. I can take photos quicker and more importantly I can speak my thoughts and observations into my voice recorder. With my big thick warm gloves on I'm muted and my inspiration and real time thoughts go into the same place, as unknown and irretrievable as they came from. So umm, well then 3 days later I got to the end. No hang on; I’m sure something happened in-between.
In places the road is so new there are no white lines and no Armco its brand spanking, President Putin’s gift to Russia apparently. The only worry is, with road this new when will I get to the bit they haven’t done yet? Apart from that dodgy area in Dagestan this has been the only other time a really fast bike would have been any use at all on this trip.
But to conserve my ever increasing oil consumption and knocking engine I just plod along at my usual 60 MPH. I stop every 100 miles for fuel just in case the fuel stations run out with the asphalt.
Things are really cooling down. When I stop for my lunchtime soggy thawed tomato and sausage sandwich I have to put in my linings and fleece, all these clothes usually sit behind me in a bag offering back support but now I'm wearing them I may be warm but I can’t lean back and give it the easy rider position anymore. Autumn is becoming more evident with orange ferns in the undergrowth and yellow
aspen amongst the pines. It’s a little scary being so far out; there is some traffic but nothing much in the way of any form of life.

Back in western Russia every 4th car wasn’t a Lada but here every car has a paper temporary plate in the window, and is right hand drive even thought they drive on the right, there is a massive migration of imported 2nd hand cars from Japan, personal and professionally imported the further east I ride the left had drive Lada becomes a rare sight. These are fast cars, reliable and being Right hand drive it means the drivers can pass me even closer despite the wide open road ahead. Bastards.
The scenery is pretty, hills and trees not really barren waste land just untouched and for most of the year I would imagine uninhabitable. I’m not feeling so good; its coming on in waves may be something I ate, that dam tomato. I haven’t had a hot meal in 2 days its so much effort ordering from a menu I can’t understand and I have such limited Russian that I can only order one thing. Well 3 things actually, that makes one meal. I make myself stop at a cafe it has some trucks outside so it can’t be that bad can it? All heads turn, they always do. Sometimes its ok, sometimes you feel like screaming and sometimes you just can’t face it. I point meaningfully at an item on the menu ‘nyet’ is the response, it means no, I still can’t pronounce it right and god knows I've heard it enough times. It’s the most frequent answer to my requests
‘Stroganoff’ the miserable bitch says, ‘oh yeah great that will be perfect’ I drink my black sweet tea and out comes some grey meat on top of some watery bloated rice and its barely warm. This darling is utter shit you should be ashamed of ya self serving up such inedible tripe it’s a waste of fairy liquid getting this plate dirty with such fowl looking slop. Assuming you bother to clean them at all or is this just the last lot of rejected leftovers? This isn’t a place of exile now you know, I don’t have to be here, I have choice. It come with bread, great more bread everything I eat is either between or accompanied by bread. I push it away so as not to be put off my tea and walk out. You pay upfront of course, places like this the world over would never chance leaving the bill to after the meal. It’s such an awful experience I just want to get away and don’t bother to top up from the large galvanized tanks of fuel out by the stinking and no doubt frequently used pit toilet. I just leave. Now I really feel rough. Nothing I can put my finger on, just need a nice room and good bed, warmth and familiar food, in fact what I need is familiarity, not road and bike, its familiar alright but I want... I want to stop; I guess that’s what I want.
I can’t tell where I am, fuel stations and civilization in general have dried up, so much for writing down the town names the only one that is ever signposted is Khabarovsk in ever decreasing distances. A town is sign posted I can’t tell you the name I only know it in Cyrillic and my keyboard won’t do that and I can’t even pronounce it properly cus I haven’t learned all my sounds, like backwards ‘3’ ‘*’and a sort of a house shape etc. But said town is down 11kms of dirt road, I don’t need this but I don’t need to run out of petrol either, I overtake a car cus I'm eating his dust, I hit 2 rocks in a row really hard, the suspension bottoms out and the wheel has more flat spots now that a plateau of pancakes. But I get my fuel, god what is this place? it’s got the now almost obligatory soviet housing blocks but it’s so desolate not un-inhabited its just had a joy bypass, I chance getting some supplies soon as I'm here, I find a ... well whatever I call it will give the wrong impression. It’s a faded sign over a door way in a grey concrete block I walk through and there is a bunch of musty royal blue couches and arm chairs, and beyond a few shelves of dull and uninspired packaged food. A young girl is sitting at a counter looking as stuffed at the couches. She shouts for her mother and I think granny comes, I can’t find water, every transparent liquid I see is vodka, I find lemon water. I'm really feeling bad now. I go get my water bottle and show it to them they find me water all be it fizzy. I hate cooking and brushing my teeth with fizzy water. Bread and chocolate, that’ll do I guess. I decide to rid my pocket of the ever swelling pile of coins, I count out 50 roubles, it takes a while but there is no rush for anything in this place, urgency is not anywhere to be seen . I make a gesture like I can pull up my trousers now and it raises a slight smile and they follow me out, to check I’m leaving? 3 generations of utter boredom watch me mount my tired dirty steed, maybe they’re pleased, maybe there envious, and I leave into the unknown and leave them in there complacent familiarity.
The sun is going down, shadows are getting longer, I have to find a place to camp. So much of the tundra each side of the road is just a boggy... well bog really. I cannot, dare not, get the bike stuck again not out here not on my own. I don’t like the places I'm finding and I'm running out of daylight. I go down a blocked dirt track it goes to a kind of quarry an excavation for the use of building this improved hi way it will have to do. dry mud impossible to get tent pegs in and far more exposed than I would like but in this vast expanse of wilderness there are surprising few places to actually camp. Now I've stopped I have noting to concentrate on but the way I feel , my bottom explodes and I think I’m gonna throw up. This is not really the place to feel like this especially being on my own. At 9pm its dark, I put on my thermals and get into my sleeping bag, I can’t face food. I can hear the Trans Siberian railway on one side of me and the occasional vehicle from the road on the other, and pure silence in between... I wake in the night cus there is something outside the tent, by the time I have wound up my torch and un zipped sleeping bag and inner and outer tent the source of the noise has long gone, but I'm not going to just lie there in the unknown, I at least want to know what is going to attack me, man or beast, what beasts are out here anyway? Bears? Those vicious marmots with the sharp pointy teeth? It rains a little in the night but it’s mainly that infinite star canopy that I see when I brave the outside in my long underwear for yet another piss. It’s a long and lonely road this, very long and very lonely.
When the daylight comes there is a sheet of ice on my seat and top box.
Even the nuts holding the chin strap on Monklets helmet are white. Not frost, ice, god it was cold last night. Siberia, cold? Who would have thought it, ya’d think someone would have said something.
But I feel better, just a pounding head, that’s fixed with forcing myself to drink 2 litres of water, as I dry the ice off the tent and make a peanut butter sandwich and swallow an ibuprofen. Back to the road. You would think after all these miles all these different terrains I would know how to ride appropriately but I go too slowly and to cautiously over the mound of stones which were put there precisely to stop me being this side of them in the first place. The rear wheel spins and buries itself. I’m stuck; again, I manage to push the bike back and put it on the side stand, kick the stones around a bit and then breathlessly attack the new hurdle with more speed and determination if not more confidence. And I’m back in the road 700kms further down it than I was this time yesterday. Well that warmed me up, out of breath I continue east. I was kind of looking forward to this autumn ride but an autumn ride is one thing, out for a few hours and then home for a whiskey or cuppa tea, but getting out of a frosty tent, waking up to a frozen seat and riding for 12hours, in, all be it clear blue, still cold skies, isn’t so much an autumn ride, it’s a big chill. But today for the first time making an appearance from the bottom of my pannier is the heated waistcoat. Plugged into the auxiliary socket especially fitted to accept its plug of potential pleasure. I didn’t even know I was going to Siberia when I packed it. Like everything else it was bought on the cheap and I don’t have the thermostat for it. I usually just turn it on and off but, not here I leave it on and it’s wonderful. It warms the whole of my body, even the extremities. I figure that soon as the heart pumps the blood around the body as long as there is warmth around the heart then the blood will warm and the in turn warm up its destinations. But best of all is the collar it’s so toasty and I push my neck against it to feel the electric warmth. It’s better than a hug. The problem is it makes me sleepy; I do calculations in my head, miles to kilometres distances to days. I look forward to significant numbers, half way down the hi way, 13,000 miles travelled since home. But then there are no exciting numbers due, and I realize apart from pump attendants, shop assistants, hotel receptionists and ugly old hags who dirty plates in the name of food. I haven’t spoken to anybody in over a week. There aren’t even any police check points like there were in the west. I guess It’s not a desirable place ‘if ya wanta come here feel free, we aint gonna stop ya’. I'm not stopping at cafes any more, too many bad experiences, in fact I'm not eating at all, I'm listening to my body and it’s not telling me it wants to eat.
It takes so long to cross a page of the map, gratification does not come quick in this infinite area, ok I admit it Siberia is a little bigger that I first thought, not endless but defiantly prolonged. But its dry and its sunny, it’s a dry ride in more than one way cus once again I'm giving my liver some time off. I don’t have many songs in my head and I don’t have many thoughts either, I'm not travelling some inner path to self awareness I'm just trying to use a delicate sound of thunder to get a lady ga ga song out of my head. Most of today’s riding has been done in a daze, concentration levels are low, not distracted just low. I don’t need concentration, the road is smooth there is no traffic, no police, no live stock wondering the road, only the occasional squashed Siberian tiger at the side of the road, no wonder they are so rare, they clearly have bugger all road sense.
I make my mileage, so focused now on my destination I miss the turn off to a town I half wanted to see, the half of me that didn’t care is pleased for the lack of diversion and the half that did want to see it checks the guide book again and decided it’s not really that interesting. Once again the shadows are long
and I have to stop I've done over 500 miles today. My record for this trip, considering the hard seat and the speed that’s pretty good, this aint no tourer but with the additional padding of thermal underwear and lined trousers my arse has more mileage in it. I find a river, a big slow moving silent river
and although judging by the amount of rubbish left behind it’s a popular spot it’s late and I take a chance and camp there. Cook a ready meal. All these emergency things I bought from home are getting used now I'm at the end of the journey and haven’t had an emergency. When I go to wash my plate in the river I find it’s really warm, un-naturally warm, like a warm patch in a public swimming pool and I wonder what pollution had generated such heat in this silent brown river. In fact it’s not totally silent. It makes the occasional ‘plop’ for no apparent reason.
The night seemed cold but there was no frost on my seat, just low energy levels I suppose. This could be my last night’s camping and I have so much food left, so extravagantly I make beans on toast for breakfast. Well beans on blackened bread eaten with burnt fingers. There is a sandy track from the river to the road. I hate sand. Once again I’m breathless and sweating by the time I get to the road, it’s a great warm up, work out or am I just out of shape form 3 months of throttle twisting.
Another high mileage day. Adventure will never find you on the road if ya don’t stop to let it catch up. From dawn to dust I ride getting closer to my destination but nothing gets close me.
Now I have started to empty my panniers I am really into shedding weight I discard my olive oil and later I find a few cloves of garlic I was carrying , oh yes that will really make me go faster.
Sometimes the road runs with the train track, sometimes with a river and sometimes it runs alone. As the day progresses my shadow slowly emerges from behind me, till I can see it out the corner of my eye, sometimes I try to take photos of its perfect definition of my riding position but when I hold a camera it just aint looking like it really should.
The distance markers are beginning to represent years, when it’s at 1911 I think that was the First World War then 1939 the second and it occurs to me all that could happen again in this century we’ve only just begun. When it gets to 1965, the year of my birth I start to associate the years with events in my life, each new number is about 40 seconds away, perfect for my attention span. It starts with schools attended, houses lived in and albums released. Then into the 1980’s and girls I was seeing and places I travelled to. It was a real memory exercise. The 2010 sign was missing but come 2011 all I know for sure is I'm going to see Roger Waters in May and then 2012 and beyond I realized I have no clue where I will be living, house or country, no plans what so ever. And I think that’s the way I like it. Slowly there are signs of life again and once more like every country since Poland people sit on stalls and sell their wares at the side of the road. Its large mushrooms this time, from sex to water melons from white milky vodka to wicker baskets there have been local goods available at the side of the road. I like that. Although the English lout in me desperately want to stick out my foot and kick over a bucket of ‘shrooms not in a nasty way it would just be so much easier than making contact with a melon it’s not malicious, done with a smile, I'm still a fun guy. But of course I would never do such a thing but man those buckets are soooo kickable. At KM 2161 I've long since stopped playing the year association game it’s stopped being fun once I past my expiree date. I’ve reached Khabarovsk And I cross a massive bridge over the equally massive Amur River, my god sensory overload, there is so much to look at, my mind had really gone numb, slowed right down, there is no end of the road celebrations, I'm thrown into civilization with no time to consider what I've just done. There is traffic and things to think about like finding a hotel, once again negotiating my way into the centre of a foreign city. And once again I manage it perfectly without one single wrong turn or one sign post understood. I'm so glad I'm not one of the satellite navigation generation and I can find my way using a black and white map in a guide book. For the first time the temperature warning light on my bike has come on. Turns out the wire had come off the fan. If my body had a temperature warning light it would also be illuminated, the thermals are no longer needed but not easily removed. The streets in Khabarovsk are hilly a little San Francisco like. I have heard good things about this place and been looking forward to seeing it, may be taking a day off. These hills are no good in traffic for a hot and tired engine the top end knocks like a hammer banging nails into shipping create, I hear ya knocking but I can’t commit. The first hotel has no rooms, the 2nd I can’t find, the 3rd had no rooms nor the 4th the 5th is a railway station resting house and I can’t leave my bike unattended here while I go find the reception. The next one has expensive rooms but its late I'm tired and this is what credit cards are for. Secure bike parking and the promise of a much needed registration of my visa, and wifi, so to my room, laundry? No I’ll be ok I got one more pair of underwear. I’ll just have a much needed shower, the shower holder is loose and the water sprays everywhere, I go get my Swiss army knife to fix it but slip on the wet floor and go down hard, arrggghh. It’s a quick fix but now my shoulder and back are wrenched and bruised. I shouldn’t have to do this shit in an expensive hotel. No internet, I have to go down 2 floors to get reception, by reception. Anyway I'm hungry. I walk to the cafe I saw by the station, it closes at 8 and it’s gone 8 cus I have crossed yet another time zone. I find another one its burgers and fries they look bad and I've had enough of meals between bread, well there is a supermarket by the hotel I’ll get something there, but I can’t find it either, ok last resort, the Chinese’s restaurant but its full not even a table for one. Shit. Back to station and I get a kebab it’s actually pretty good but I'm eating and walking and not really enjoying it. Back at hotel and the internet is so slow and keeps cutting out. I'm really not having a good time. I'm grumpy and this city has become a real disappointment. Khabarovsk’s’ population of half a million inhabitants make this the worlds coldest city. There are certainly plenty of autumn leaves blowing around the streets but the temperature of this place is mainly reflected in the white blancmange consistency scrambled eggs and ‘potato pancakes’ for ‘included’ breakfast, how difficult is it to heat food in this country? Obviously very.
There is no way in hell I'm staying another night but I’ll take a walk around the city. I'm sure it was pure coincidence putting Guns ‘n’ Roses, Chinese democracy on my iPod as I walk down to the river that separates China from Russia. Ok. been there, seen it, done it, taken a few photos now back to hotel,
check internet, ‘nych’ I have to pay for another log in code if I want to get on line today as well, ‘what do you mean, as well?’ ok fuck it ‘is my visa registration done?’ suddenly no English is understood. No surprise. No registration, I pack up my bike and as angry and pissed off as I arrive I leave.
760 kms left to go to Vladivostok. The end of the country the end of the trip. I’m not going to make it today, it’s already midday.
Slowly it occurs to me I don’t think I really like Russia that much everything has been disappointing, Sochi was just a rich city, fine if ya got money, the coastal road there was just crawling trucks pumping black clouds of diesel exhaust into the air and down my lungs the Caucasus mountains were littered and the ‘attractions’ were little more than building sites. The Altai was tacky touristy and as with every place that has seen any kind of life, littered with plastic bottles and any other discarded trash. And then Lake Baikal when I could see it was, again, left like there was a dustman’s strike. The Trans Siberian was ok, glad I did it but there is nothing I have seen that makes me want to come back. The women are beautiful but that’s only cus they’re not covered in discarded plastic bags and smashed vodka bottles. As a point of transit, a gateway to Kazakhstan and Mongolia it was fine but as a destination in its self it’s disappointing.

When I stop on a side track to have my lunch someone has shat right there. Problem is now I'm down on it, now I've decided I don’t like it I can see fault with everything, I move on and find a river to stop by its ok but again rubbish everywhere. They have no pride in their country , you can boast the biggest this the highest that but if all ya see is trash where ya promote natural beauty then it will always fall short of its potential.
With 300kms to go I find a motel it will be nice to have an early finish 6pm have a proper meal in the restaurant and sit and do some writing, I deal with the bulshy babushka at reception and she takes me to the room but can’t get in. Lots of knocking many keys and 20 minutes later she opens the door to reveal a drunken unconscious guy on a bed with the TV blaring, I'm not sleeping here, I want a private room for that price. Ok give me my money back what a complete waste of time. Back on the road and one more night in the tent. One more emergency meal. When ya done, ya done. I couldn’t just stop in Ulaan Baatar but I can now, not fed up of riding just fed up of the country I'm riding in, I have no Carnet de passage for my bike so shipment to Japan is out of the question. I have ridden to the end of Eurasia all the way to Vladivostok. No elation , no excitement just a badly packed dew soaked tent, a pile of smelly cloths , incomplete paperwork and the worry of what to do with my bike now. Did I come too far? Should I have stopped sooner? Left wanting more? Or felt like I've had enough. Funny how the fun has gone.
A police check at last, I hand him documents so enthusiastically he has his hands full, he clearly can’t read what they say and hands then back to me too quickly I'm on my way again in less than a minute. Well that was err uneventful.
On the road into the City there is a big Concrete sign announcing the name of the city it the usually thing but in this case it’s worth a photo. I cross 3 lanes of unforgiving traffic and conveniently there is a car stopped so I ask if a photo can be taken of me, which would be great if he hadn’t have cut the ‘K’ off the side of the photo. It’s a sign it just shows how Russia is ‘could be better’

Whilst I research my options I have got a tiny room with a magnificent view of the harbour I can’t see the bike out on the street so monklet had been removed from the bike he seems to have developed a bit of a pod.
All I have in my head is a hundred hopeful options. I can’t leave the bike here, it’s on a temporary import visa and if I ignore it I will never get another visa and my overland gateway back to Kaz and Mong will forever be locked. But I don’t want to spend more than it’s worth to ship it out of the country, I can’t even give it away and I refuse to push it off the end of Eurasia at the dock on the western side of the Sea of Japan even though Japan was its place of birth. They think it’s all over ‘land’ well it aint over till it’s over.
When his nuts freeze monklet smiles
When I lie about the road kill monklet smiles
When nothing changes monklet smiles
With the unknown and familiarity he keeps on smiling
When he’s taken off the bike with bad posture and a little pod he smiles

And we think it’s all over monklet smiles a very dirty smile

The big end is neigh

Was that just a dream? It looked like a dream this morning when I left the Russian border town and looked over my shoulder for one last glance at Mongolia. There was a layer of misty cloud between the hill tops and the land below. Out the corner of my wind glazed eyes I have one last fleeting glimpse to say goodbye. I really can’t tell if that image behind me is real or not. It’s in my camera, in my memory, deeply imbedded in my mine but when I turn to look its gone, like a memory jog of last night’s dream, when today’s busy schedule won’t give you the time and peace to recall those soft focus stream of images. My mirrors won’t reflect it without the same blur, with which my memory recalls it. And even the postcards don’t depict it. Mongolia has an elusive life. It captivated me but I can’t capture it. It lies somewhere in a past time. It can be visited but it can’t be transported. Even its eagles don’t fly over the border to Russia. In years to come they may tame the environment like America did in Alaska but they could never tame the climate, how can you stop snow in August with modernization?

My week off was much needed. I knew I needed it,
staying in a ger surrounded by other gers all inhabited by broken down overlander Brits, 2 different Landrovers held together with ratchet straps, Araldite and silicone. Mongolia will kill you vehicle.
I constantly tracked the progress of my brake on the DHL website, but my tracking ends with a Monday spent in the office impatiently sitting on the couch whilst customs detain my package and charge me 50% duty. Whilst I read in house magazines on corporate expansion and worldwide domination, of obedient employees rewarded with in print recognition, and mutual back patting for an upward moving graph. It’s all so career and company orientated if I had some TNT I’d blow em UPS but my eyes are peeled for the courier to arrive from the airport. It’s the first time I notice that the yellow and crimson of a Buddhist monks attire is similar to DHL uniform and I look at them expectantly like I'm looking for enlighten, when all I want is to lighten them of their load. Why is a monk in a DHL office? To collect his package I assume, I don’t know I didn’t ask. The office closes at 6pm I don’t budge my brake arrives at 6.30 and it is fitted and bleed by 7.30. Tomorrow I start stopping again.
I had shared the ger with a German couple who had come down from Russia and were just starting their Mongolia adventure, I envy them, I helped them change their tyres, it’s the only time I've got out my tire leavers this trip. We had both watched examples on you tube, but our efforts aren’t a patch on the videos when we are you tubeless. I take over with the confidence of theory but my ego is soon deflated.
They were good roomies better than the arrogant Dutch, fully sponsored quad bike riders, they were going to break a world record apparently , the bikes had be abandoned for 2 weeks whilst they took the train to Beijing, I asked if it was the world record for ‘longest unattended quad in Mongolia’ but I didn’t get a comprehendible answer.
Having managed to avoid all the invitations of vodka binges from western Russia to nomadic Mongolian herdsman, I fall victim to the transparent poison in a guesthouse with the German couple. And man was I ill. A 24 hour hangover. I’ll never drink again.
I had finally decided to abandon my old tyres they were an insurance policy, but I will bravely go on without them. It means a different packing technique. How many people leave this guest house saying ‘feels so good not to be carrying my spare tyres anymore?’

I'm so used to my system. I know everything I carry and where it goes and I notice when something is not there, both my tooth brush case and comb are missing and I search and find. The comb was hidden between the cracks in the wooden floor, I would not have seen it if I hadn’t been looking, I’m so proud of my organization and methodical packing, I can only apply this now I can go at my own pace travelling alone.

I can’t even do a paved road from the capital to the border without making myself stress
, I'm low on money and fuel , I can only afford to put in 10 litres when I need 15 and I'm wondering if I can make it, I have my fist and only stop check in this country and have to pay a road toll , only 25p but it was assigned for noodle soup, which I buy anyway and leave Mongolia with 2 litres left in my tank and a spare 2 pounds worth of currency. Why do I make myself ride this way? Doing constant calculations on distance, fuel used and money left. I could have changed another $10 and worried about something completely different. When I'm not calculating, I'm remembering Russia, the lack of road signs, the constant police checks, and how I can’t fine my way out of cities, then I remember shashlyk, the meaty shish kebabs and everything seems better, I ride on my bike but, really do travel on my stomach.
I know I’m going to miss Mongolia I would love to return sometime, my only regret is I will never be able to visit Mongolia again for the first time. Will I ever get that awe of the wild or only a memory of a feeling I once had. Something changes instantly when you leave. I know I say that about every border crossing but I get my exit stamp from Mongolia and at the next barrier are blonde haired white skinned Russians, I didn’t realize it but for the last month any hair colour but black and any skin rather than wind torn and sun died dark and weathered and blushed cheeks have indicated western traveller and therefore a minimum of a nod of acknowledgement was offered and now I have to physically stop myself from smiling at every western looking person they all look like me again (well you know) but they are native. I wondered if I would ever get so far out that places like Russia on a 2nd or 3rd visit would become familiar when on my first entry it all seemed so foreign, but now it’s not that I feel closer to home, I just feel used to being away from it. Whilst Mongolia lays in its own shadow just a fence away despite the fact the roads here are still dust the accommodation may have been up rated from cloth and felt to wood and corrugated iron. But the difference is children play in the streets, just like at home; out on the wild steepe of Mongolia there were no streets to play on. In just a few miles it changes to an almost familiar life. Although water is drawn from roadside pumps and transported in Ladas and not horse and cart, I guess they still have to catch up on that one.
I find a pizza parlour where some music channel is playing, the time is 3pm in Moscow where it is broadcast from but its 8pm here and the realization of the size of this country is dawning on me, whilst it’s dusk in Siberia its lunch time for the capital.
My room seems to have no electric, how am I supposed to charge my phone, I look for my head light in my tank bag, it’s not there, I know where it is, it’s on a headboard in a ger in Mongolia, shit, I remember my comb but forget my bloody head light. Mr methodical has no one to blame but himself. Dam it.
I hadn’t really intended to stay in this boarder town but with another time zone at the boarder I was too late to get insurance and I’m not going to ride in Russia without it. Too many tales of incarceration, impoundment and fines.
I fall into a deep sleep and so the knocking at my door takes a while to bring me back to consciousness. Oh that will be the prostitute I suppose. I find some cloths and sheepishly open the door with annoyance and a little intrigue, 2 women, wow, I recognise one, and it’s the hotel receptionist, with her translator. ‘It’s ok I can’t afford 2 and anyway I have a phrase book.’
Turns out my bike is not safe outside, I have to get dressed and follow a man on a bicycle to a gated and dog guarded barn. I ride lidless, without insurance or underwear and leave it there; it will cost £1.75 well that seems reasonable. I thought you were gonna fuck me. I jog back to my hotel, and lay wide awake in bed for hours.
The next morning I find my post-it note from Kazakhstan written for me in Russian by and embassy employee asking for motorcycle insurance. I show it at reception and its starts a 4 way heated discussion and eventually a very vague map is drawn for me, how vague? Actually it's not so much a map more a squiggle it could just be a rune. So I walk into toon and see what is arooned. I go into a bank ‘this is a bank’ says the teller,
‘Yeah I know’
‘Go to administration’ it seems to be the answer to most of my questions. I go to a big building, a cleaner who doesn’t clean looked at my note and with the same enthusiasm he applies to his cleaning he nods something negative, so I go to another bank, she points up, I go upstairs I find an unlocked door, a woman sits behind a desk and I show her my note, from a draw she pulls out a blank insurance certificate and without emotion starts to fill it in. I have enough joy for us both I searched through a town I don’t know, signs I can’t read and communicated in a language I can’t understand and I got what I wanted, 2 months insurance for £15. Whoopee. I'm well chuffed with myself.
Once again I'm heading in a direction that is not the usual. I'm north and then I'm west to Lake Baikal.

Want some facts? The largest fresh water lake on the planet, over a mile deep it contains 1/5 of the worlds fresh water, pure enough to drink straight from the lake
without even worrying if you have an en suite room. If it were emptied we would all be standing a foot deep in fresh water, something like that.
I ride for 5 hours on good road with road marking and signposts. There are laws and assumptions that people will obey them, indicators are used as are lanes, and it’s so much easier to drive this way. My map is in cyclic like the sporadic sign posts and I know exactly where I am, I just can’t pronounced it, it’s all such a novelty, has the hardest part been done? Kazakhstan and Mongolia always filled me with a trepidation but with only the trans Siberian hi way to go the only fear is when that death rattle in my bottom end will stop as the crank pierces the casings like as alien out of a chest.
I have ridden into autumn.
Riding into fall as opposed to falling when I ride. Not on these asphalt roads.
This trip became my longest bike trip 6 weeks ago in time spent but as of yesterday it became my highest mileage too. I broke the 11750 mile mark that I did on my Alaskan trip. On this road of frustration so close to Lake Baikal but barely getting a glimpse of it. The trans Siberian railway hugs the shore and the road runs parallel to it but is separated by a strip of changing aspen an pine trees although it’s pretty I came here to see a lake.
I sit in my room writing this with my back to the window and realize I'm missing a sunset, so I wonder down to the shore, and the lake and the day redeems its self. I left my virtual world just in time to catch a sunset in the real world.


A good night’s sleep shall I stay another night? Shall I go have breakfast?
I take my point it book to the restaurant and point at eggs and then at toast, ‘no toast’
I point at a loaf,
‘No’
I’ll just have eggs then, I sit a look at the pictures in my book until the eggs arrive with 2 slices of bread and butter, whatever.
Indecision is the curse of my days now, not professional decisions to make, just where to wonder, it’s always been ‘what next?’ And now I'm heading west I wonder should I go home, but what about the hi way east, should I camp tonight or get a hotel, how much further should I keep going round the lake if I'm going to turn round, my visa is for 3 months, my bike insurance for 2 and my medical insurance has 1 month left, how much longer will the money last and what about that dam bottom end?
Sentiment should not be a decision maker, it is pointless to ship the bike anywhere when the transport costs are more than the replacement costs, just so I can have the bike in my garage and say where I went on it. I will have to settle for a blown up photo and a number plate on the garage wall. That’s how I can afford to do these things, if I had a 11 grand BMW I wouldn’t be able to come here in the first, not that I would want to be seen on a BMW, even by people I don’t know. My bike and everything on it was all bought to be disposable it was all bought for a one way trip. It was never meant to own me but the bond of my 2 wheel travel companion is so strong and it will be so hard to just abandon it.
‘Thanks for the ride, see ya.’ A one trip stand?
Now I ride without spare tyres I’ve lightened my load, I consider all the spares I bought with me, the tubes so heavy and bulky , the leavers and cables, all the dehydrated food I haven’t touched. At least I have a use for my wind-up torch now. I can pull off a sticker festooned pannier and jump on a plane, and instead of giving my money to a shipping company I can buy another bike in another country, wouldn’t that make sense? Can I think about something else now?
No I can’t, then I get one of those flashes of brilliance and it’s born in soba morning thoughts, most unlikely. Based on the theory of ‘I have had the same broom for 20 years, 5 new bushes and 2 new handles but it’s the same broom.’ What if I take the essence of the bike, its individuality, the oversize tank the one off pannier rack the spotlights and leaver protectors, etc? It would make for a small create, cheap shipping and would turn the next KLR into an overlander like the one I have now, I wouldn’t mourn the loss of a tired shock or burnt out spark plug. I keep its identity and leave the frame and engine numbers behind.
This is a completely brilliant idea and now I can find something else to occupy my thoughts, I mentally build a create with all that I will keep. I’m worry free again.
Oh wait.
The engine noise is getting worse.
I take a diversion round a little peninsular but still can’t see the lake and now I can’t see the delta I came here to see either just a neat line of fishing boats.
I take off my helmet and ride with my head bowed down towards the engine, it sounds awful, really ill. I tune heads not from my exhaust note now but from the singing metallic chinking from within my crank cases. I’ll be lucky to make it to Ulan Ude let alone Vladivostok. Shit. Just as I find a solution I get a new problem. The stress in my back is aching and I limp along and get to the out skirts of the city. I call my KLR buddy in England and describe the sounds and symptoms and ask his advice, in desperation for a diagnosis I even hold the phone to the running engine, the phone call running higher than the revs, he says if it is big ends they will go soon if not already.
I take out the filter, it’s not really metally. 2 guys pull up in a van. ‘Ah England, Chelsea, Beatles, do I need help?’
‘What’s Russian for magnet?’
I look in my point it book and there is no magnet, I check both my phrase books and nothing, I'm so busy looking at books they decide I stopped for a reading break and leave me to it. I drain some oil to check the magnetic sump plug it’s not really a pyramid of swarf. I put the same oil back in and some new too. Then by-pass the city. I ride out till the shadows get long, the road follows the river, and this would all be idyllic if I was not waiting for the termination of my engine.
I follow a track into some pines
I am relatively well hidden so I make camp. The stove wont light and I can’t heat what was to be my first boil in the bag meal of Lancashire hot pot, I dispose of the stove fuel and replace it with fuel from the tank and ‘woof’ I have ignition and soon boiling water and a dam good and effortless meal. Well the food preparation was effortless if not the heating method.
It’s always scary camping alone, I have full phone signal so send a few texts but it’s too silent and when there is a noise it makes me jump. I have put my phone on silence, I do it every night cus I'm 8 hrs ahead of UK now. When it lights up with a reply even that makes me jump. Oh god, I'm not going to sleep tonight am I? But I do, the crazy dreams are evidence of sleep all be it light and disturbed, walking round the lake shore with Keith Chegwin with a commentary from Janice Long, where does it come from?
Like a terminal patient it’s always a relief to see the light of a new day has arrived. and relief keeps coming like a multiple orgasm, with a packed bike and not being discovered, ooo, and when the bike starts, arrhh and again when I find my way back to the road, oh my god, the sun was in my eyes when I came down this track and its is again now. It’s an early start heated grips and fingerless gloves it’s a clear autumn morning, with a fresh chill. I slowly accelerate up to 60mph, heading east. Here I come again.
I see another overlander coming the other way but very fast, we wave and turn our heads to try in that nano second to indentify number plates and nationality, but neither of us brake, bummer cus I want to know how far Vladivostok is and how much of the road is paved.
I think of the people I have met and the invitations I have to go to stay in Soule and Taiwan, and that starts me singing ‘Yellow rose’ to myself by Roger Waters, with its Chinese Taiwanese themes. It’s as if my un-distracted mind is focused with either perception or empowerment because another biker with flags flying comes towards me, I break and go meet him. Oh right, I've heard of this guy, a crazy Chinese guy with no luggage except a massive subwoofer on the back and his daughter wearing a cardigan and open face lid, no camping gear, no food, no water, nothing, and on the road for 7 years and 3 to go.
He is the epitome of amazement. We take each others photos and emails, not really much to say to each other. There are lots of questions but I prefer to have this encounter shrouded in mystery. I'm in awe and respect he tells me he is for peace, I show him monklet and tell him monklet is for smiles.
And after that encounter I feel so much better, if he can make it, so can I.
I have a sausage stop and once again I re-fasten my tank with its ever braking brackets. I notice the exhaust is a little loose in the cylinder head. So I decide to use my spare exhaust gasket to replace the old one. But there is no old one, gone, and when the new one is in, the entire noise stops. So was it transference of valve noise through the pipe not insulated by a gasket? Is that why the sound reverberated all around? Have I fixed it?
Why I am the prophet of doom? Why is every problem considered terminal? The engine still knocks but now it’s just a top end low revs under strain noise, I can live with that, the engine won’t die with that. Is that all it was? I don’t so much ride with confidence as much as waiting for this easy fix to reveal itself as blatant optimism. But the bike continues, I can cope with excessive oil consumption. Anyway how far is it to Vladivostok? Some might say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing in my defence I would say an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less. I shall continue to into my many experiences and learn a little from them all.
I’m still in anticipation of the road ahead, not really sure what to expect, but that’s half the fun isn’t it? That’s why I left home. The element of the unknown. I'm glad this feeling still exists, if I knew it was a smooth hi way how dull it would be, it would be nice to know how far I have got to go though. I heard once 4500kms but that doesn’t really help cus I don’t remember where I heard it? Kazakhstan? Mongolia? Altai Russia?
What’s Siberia like?
Well I heard it described as endless but after 12000 miles it seems anything but, its vast

, ok, but the end is near, I'm just not exactly sure how near, the end of Eurasia, from Atlantic to Pacific, sort of. Its hilly, its flat , it pine covered and then barren it varied in a slow sort of way, but all the time I'm riding into autumn, yellow slowly turns to orange like a 3 day sunset. Turn away and ya notice the change when you look again.

As I approach Chita a sign 2165 kms to Khabarovsk and now I know, cus it’s another 700kms from there to my new final destination. And that is where I'm going to leave it,yet another timezone, they don’t need it. It is still light at 11pm and the sun don’t rise till 8.30am they are just showing off. Take a break in my last modern city for a while, before I head off fearlessly into the slightly more know that it was before.
I'm very into my own company at the moment it feels like my swansong will be a solo and I can’t stop stopping or can’t start going, always another photo to take. My start button works again it doesn’t miss a beat, so I'm happy to keep stopping. I think my journey will end alone like it began and that’s just fine by me, I'm late behind the rest. When I asked at a hotel why they aren’t busy don’t they get many tourists she replies ‘yes in summer, and skiers in the winter now is fall’ yeah I know. Sorry I'm a bit late, been dragging my feet a bit. As long as it doesn’t snow again I’m happily off peak.


When it’s just him and a guard dog in a stale musty barn all night, monklet smiles.
When we can’t see the lake for the trees monklet smiles
When we are deafened by the deathly rattle of a sick engine he smiles.
In the silence of a forbidden forest he smiles his silent smile
When I stop getting emails cus no one replies to a blog, he smiles like I'm not forgotten.
And when we are confronted with a ride for peace he displays how he rides for smiles, miles and miles of smiles.