So I said goodbye to the family,
it was a stressful morning, i had to go to the bazzar to buy oil and water and find canisters so as not to mix them up and luggage straps, which would have, could, have been fun , i could have spent an afternoon walking around, but no i left it too late and was totallly stressing, as i was running late and then i still had to go the the market for food supplies for the next 2 days of camping.
i was of course chuffed around in a 4x4 by the ever helpful and giving son and as i rushed round filling my basket and failed to keep calm at the confusion at the yogurt counter, he said to me 'i wish i was comming with you' and that was all it took,
'thank you. Thank you, for a minute there i was so tied up in my list and lateness i forgot i was living the dream, i lost site but now i see again thanks for that, i'm ok now.
so with bike packed, photos taken huggs and kisses exchanged and extra chocolate given for my ride, i roed away form yet an other example of the limitless kazakhstan hospitality
it had been a little bit of luxury,but more importantly i just felt like a part of the family rather than a guest in the house,i realized it more after i left, but this goodbye was made much easier by the fact that i knew 12 miles down the road was 3 hellos
i went to the railway station car park to meet the swiss guy i had met via the overland web site, we had already met up the other day to see if our plans could be riden out together and i instantly knew we would get on, he spoke of the 2 austrians who he had met up with.
alarm bells should have gone off when he said they were scared to camp where there was a pot smoking fisherman by the lake, as glenn said 'is there anyone more peacful and less threating than a pot smoking fisherman'
i instantly dubbed them the touratech twins, they were sponsered, had brand new BMW's which were fully loaded with every accessory in the touratech catalogue, on top of that they had sponcsership from Nikon and had a £6000 camera and free orange phones and calls, as well and lap tops, they had everything all given in the name of sponsership.
when i arrived they were banging the hell out of an aliminium pannier with a rubber mallet, they had had a littel accident at the lights, so 1st impresion was ‘oh right they have the touratech but not the touring techinque.' however they were friendly and whne we 4 set off out of town which was another luxury cus i was following them and they were following there sat nav, they can also be followed on google earth and via their website, this was techo riding and on my ebay 2nd hand bike and used and abused everything else i was really once agan the scruff of the crowd. but with so much visual overload it was hard to tell, 4 bikes carrying 8 spare tyres, 4 laps tops 6 phones, web cams helmet cams, moniter screens Sat Navs SLR's compacts we were the flash drivers,
i was finding it very hard to focus my thoughts, as a solo rider i have deep and focused trips into my mind weather i like it or not,. i anerlize reflect and understand, but now i was drowing in a sea of shallow and insipid thoughts, focused on logos, sponsers and equipment i didnt even know existed, i was constantly on camera, from behind and in front, how the hell did i ride into this, i just re realized i was living the dream and now im having it filmed too. and photographed with more megapixles than 20 megaflids and through a lens worth more than my bike and all its contents. it takes me a while to beleive this and glenn (the swiss guy) obviously has the same things going through his helmet too as i see him punch the aiir, we were both one now we are 4.
we were riding to a canyon and at a rest stop 3 Kazak bikers pull up, coming back from a camping and fishing trip , rods like joulsting poles on their bikes, they say they will lead us to a great camping spot on the river inside the canyon and then we are 7.
7 bikes riding the twists and turns of the rocky terrain, how amazing, 15 miles of dirt road all of us with our dusty trails blowing across the bottom of the horrizon. and we are led to the rocky path that leads us down into the canyon, it was so farmilia , on 'the long way round' its where ewan and charley constantly fall off. the austrians will not go down there his tyres one of them says will not do it.
‘not on des wheels not with dis luggage’ ok so thye take us to another place where some vodka drinking watermellon eating kazaks are partying, i walk down the track with one of the Kazak bikers he is so friendly and so open i can see it in his face, he wants us to stay at his place later but we are going the other way, for the first time i am seeing the downside of traveling in a group. decisions are not made easily and compremise can have a high price.i want to camp in the canyon but im a new and lone voice in the group, so we camp in the shade of some rocks on a bit of green under a beautiful sunset , its was perfectly aceptable but knowing there was a big orange canyon 300 feet down that track was a bit frustrating, we cooked and all tryed to outdo each other with what we could produce from out of our paniers, they may have had compressors and super light cooking equipment but i had a chopping board , spactular and cholate ,in fact i may be traveling with out the catalogue of touring accessories but i can function with out a titainum saucepan just as every explorer and adventurer has since the first person thought to him self , 'i wonder whats over there'
i was doing ok on the 'look what i have here' stakes. and whne they say 'man your bike is sooo cool' i think yeah it is isnt it? i made it that way, ride it that way, live with it and love it that way' and im impressed but not envious of what they have and that is a good feeling to go to my sleeping bag with.
Last night lap tops were produced to view the vidios and photos of the days events and first thing in the morning hills are climbed to get reception and texts receive and sent, this is techno camping.
and so next morning me and Glenn (the swiss guy) (you know that now right?) take off our panniers and ride down the path that the people of sponsership seem to have so much trouble with, we are photgraphed as we go down, i just kind of do a controled skid most of the way. and then we ride the bottom of the canyon.
its amazing, steep walls and hanging rocks, and a raging river at our side, yeah we are going to get on just fine, my memeoy card runs out i get the spare one out of my camera case and there in the tiny zipped compartment is my toe ring, i got in india 13 years ago, i took it off a year ago in sweaty california and since then i have looked both sides of the atlantic for it, i knew i put it somewhere safe, and here it is. reunited i cant wait to put it back on.
so glad we came down here and didnt have it denighed us. but in the back of my mind is getting back up again. the are lenses pointing at us and i consentrat, stand on my pegs and i ride up like I’m in totoal control, because i am, my skills have increased quicker than my confidence and my awearness of my abilities. 7 weeks on the bike 7000 miles, of course im going to get better (like my spelling), its called pratice (but its spelt different, probably), i didnt only get out of the canyon but i enjoyed doing it, yeah i want more of this.
loaded up again off we go, video shoots and re takes over various obsticals, its fun but god its slow, another downside of sponsership the obligation to record everything,i dont mind the sitting arround and riding up there and back again and then again in 3's and sitting about in the sun , we only stop for photo and video shoots in sceenic places so even whne im not on camera i can just look around. we meet a couple of french cyclists with smiles as big as the canyon on their 3rd day of a years journey they are fresh, excited and full of anticipation. I feed off there energy, and I don’t even need any extra.
we are heading to the chinnese boarder. see not only do i not have to look at my map i dont have to look in my guidebook either all the research has been done, im just following the camera. we ride through tiny villages that are so uneffected by the progress of modern life, milk churns are pulled on little trolies down the streets, they are pumping there water from communal pumps old men in suits riding donkies and everyone smiles and waves, i want to stop and photgraph and talk and laugh with thme but we ride right through, strange we should be missing such photo oppertunities, but it soon becomes apparent that sceenary is one thing but interaction is not what their trip is about. And in Kazakhstan its what everyone is about, everyone wants to shake ya hand, take ya photo ask where ya from , look at your bike. but oh well i follow.
we reach the bard wire fence which has china the other side of it, up ahead is the last vilage in Kaz but if we want to get to the lakes in the mountains we should turn around to get there before dark. Says touratech twin one who is Rindhard, (and to save me time will be RH from here on out,) oh ok well i guess we will turn around then , but i stay at the back and stop in the village and talk to a boy on a horse and he parks (or what ever ya do with horses when ya not eating them) it next to my bike for photos and brifly i am alone with the locals and the others wait out side the village in the safty of the open space and wait for me. so we head for the mountains and once again we stop and german is spoken and i decide its ok cus i can stay in my thoughts with out distraction . then it is anounced that it looks a bit like rain and we should not go to the lakes and go back to the canyon. what the fuck? its rain thats all and it will pass if it even comes at all. this day is becomming a day of things we nealry saw. i consider going up alone but i want copies of the photos that have been taken today of me riding like a demond out of the canyon.
so i follow again but im not going back to the canyon, i surgest we camp up in the hills. 'you mean off the road?' comes the reply from RH, yes off the road, like your bkes were built to do. and i ride over a few hills as an example incase my surgestion was lost in translation. it is considered and decided to be an ok idea and we then ride away from the hills. im getting a little tired of this. i stay behind, and the others do find a good site , but as i go down the track i have my worst fall so far and am flung off the bike, i'm ok but there is damage to the bike. i get to the palce where they have stoped, too close in my opinion to other inhabitants and while they drink beer i sulkily fix my bike ,its ok but the windscreen had broken a bit and so had the breakleaver protector im also pissed off that riding in a group im still pulling my bike out of a hedge and lifting it up by my self.
whilst im kneelin on the dirt fixing the damage i notice that a little weed plant is growing by my hand. whne i'm done i have a beer lighten up and go to river to wash, there is a field of majauanna , no one had noticed it, ya can smell it as well as see it,
ok this a pretty good spot
i can’t sleep though and spend the night reading my guide book and seeing what we had actually missed today.
the next morning i get up at sunrise and go to the river and wash and shave and enjoy the primative and refreshing way i have started my saturday morning. the current runs strongat knee hight hight and as i wash my hair my pendent falls off my necklace, but i cant betriveit incase i spill my persious Red Ken in the river and waste it. i try a futile attempt to grab at a light coloured shape beheath the water but its just a stone, i grabe for another one and its my pendent , why didnt it drift away down river i dont know, its a little mirical and i totally appriciatge it. then i sit on a rock in the sun and dry off and warm up listen to my ipod and smell the weed plants as the dew evaperates from the pungent leaves . and retie my necklace,
was a great start to the day.
i was worried that i would not be so into my thoughts of the road with so much going on around me, but im finding my self increasingly isolated from the group as german is spoken more and more. this is the worst of both worlds, in a group you dont meeet so many locals but you have company. but in this group im issolated by language and think it could be good that i am not being distracted by needless chatter but infact i am riding with resentment and thats not fun, its pointless, i like all the photos and videos but whats the point if im not smiling,
how the dynamics of the trip have changed. the chalenge has gone, the excitement, the adventure, the interaction wiht the locals,
the austrians seem afraid to intergrate they are abrupt and rude to the constant questions of where are we from. they dont return the waves we get and im wonderfing how badly i need a photgraph of this.
im apointed leaded at we enter the town cus i have a guidebook im supposed to know where the hotle is. i ask a few people but get on a road out of town, but they dont want to turn round there sat nav says theres is another road up ahead, so waht am i leading or not? why continue in the wrong direction lets use some common sence here. we stop for decussion, a guy in a bmw car turns up, perfect english
you have come from almaty eh?
‘er yeah’
I saw you on TV
‘we were on tv?’
Turns out some cameras cought the 4 of us leaving the the town and they made a news item out of it. We are news and not even awear of it.
i ask him where the hotle is and he leads us there, checks us in, insists to the reception we reamin anomious to avoid the authorities getting wind and making a song an dance (litterly) of out arrival. he brings us watermellon and invites us to his house for dinner, but the touratech twins want to write on their website. why write about stuff at the expence of experiancing it? why not go eat with with this welcoming intelgent , happy, inviting man, meet his family, but no we got to a noisy internet cafe and at that point i think fuck it . im done with this group. i tell glen im not going on and to my surpise he is of exactly the same opinion, the challenge has gone and one on the tourtech twins inparticualr is being very irritating .
Its time to say goodbye, ive bought us all beers eariler, i got a little buzz going ,our new friend and tour guide is being so paicent and i’m chatting with him in this enviroment of gamers and bloggers, im hungry and i want another drink i want to see the city and we are sat in virtual hell on a Saturday night. my well practiced now skill of keeping my mouth shut is really paying off. And we are driven to a restraunt which serves big glasses of cold beer and big plates of tasty dead animal.
Perfect
Do we want to go to a night club? Well kind of
do i want to keep drinking? Yes,
do i want to look at women? Yes,
do i want to listen to loud music? Yes
have i got to work tomorrow? No ,
do i need sleep due to insomnia attack last night ? yes. Well i seem to be in favour of it. Ok just one drink, we pay out entry fee, and are unfashinalbly first in, as it opens at 11.30 our man insists it will soon liven up, hes not wrong, he also tell us in this town there are 4 women to every man, yeah alright i was told something like this in brazil that there was 5 women to every man and i only shared a room with 4 and i never did find out who had got my 5th one.
But the dance floor is full of girls and my body is full of alchole and head is full of rythm and soon enough im ready to get on the floor and boogie, well at least jump around with a smile on my face, i call it dancing, its certainly full of passionate enthuiasium if not rythmic timing. And once ive started i cant stop. I’m a sweaty matted mess but im haveing so much fun especially whne lady ga ga is played.
Its so obviously we are 4 out of towners in a small town with the same girls and same boys at teh same club we are as strange as my dancing technique is. Glenn is obviously more used to this kind of thing he dances with the hot girls and has the moves,
i never really got that bit understood proprerly in my head, my hair just covers my face and i jump around in the directiuon of a smile. But there are lots to choose from. All of a sudden its 3am and time to go, we stand out side and fights break out i seem to have an audiance so i tell them how much i love their country and spout endless bollocks to a crowd of drunk and intreagued locals who have nothing better to do, if they are waiting for words of wisdom they are in for a long night,morning waht ever, my feet are blistered, my calves are swolen my back aches and im in need of IB profine and a big bottle of water, we are driven back to our hotel but we have an entoruge including the really hot – dance like a porn star- girl who glenn was dancing with and whos name i not only cought but actually remembered. It all goes a bit fuzzy and she is in my room, inpulsivley and drunkenly i get anybody who is not the hot girl to leave and its just me and her.
Right , well , um .. so ...wahts a nice girl like you... she had already played her ace and exhausted her english and my counting to 10 and saying the word for potatoe would just confuse her, she wants a cigaratte, i dont smoke and my lundry is drying all over the room, shit where did that sudden pang of practicallity come from , ok you can smoke in my room all over my clean cloths, soon as ya hot and sweaty and all that but she has no cigarettes and want s to go to the shop, oh man, my feet are so sore, i’m not walking to the shop , you go, ill wait here and tidy up a bit. And the next thing i know its 7am and someone is banging on my door a fat weired guy form last night thought he left his phone here. No, no phone, no hot girl, no clue as to waht happened. So i got another night with 2 hours sleep. I gather up my stuff, where are the others? packing up there bike and leaving , oh you were going to tell me?
‘we knocked’ did they? well if they did i didnt hear so may be hot girl did too, if they didnt then they dont want me to tag along, im hung over, sleep deprived , dehydrated and very confused and insecure and very bloody frustrated, what happened to the hot girl, they want to know, i want to know. Dam dam dam. Well at least its going to be an easy ride today. Im so vacant, i follow them and still manage to go through a red light. Im tryin to figure out last night, im so sore so achy, so shit ,and the IB prophine are stuck in my throat due to lack of water to wash them down and its burning like my unansered questions.
Rindhead wants to take the alturnitive route , im too tired to argue, just sit on my bike and turn the handle that makes noise and speed happen.
We are over taken by a hooting car, its happens constantly, i wave instictivly, he drives a bit agressivly, i look, he has a uniform, shall i stop? Now hes getting quite agitatged, i stop, we are near to chinnese boarder again i know we are supposed to have a boarder pass, but thats not the problem, i call a translator,on my phone it rervealed that the road ends ,so we have to turn back the 30 miles we just rode, i dont want to play this game, i want to sleep.
Back to main road, i see a landrover with english plates, its some one i have been in commuication with via the overlander wed site, we stop, chat excitedly, but RH wants to leave ,'ve have a place to be,' im gettign really fucked off with him now. We go take another wrong turn double back and meet the landrover again. Then all head the same way, the road turnd to track the track to mud, the mud to rocks and the rideable to the un ridable, RH shouting in german to stop and turn back, his pussy is hurting . i ignore him. And we come throught puddles and mud to a perfect spot by a river soft and green and trees and even a pic nic table, to good to be true. Too perfect.
The ground it flat and soft the tent pegs slide into the ground like a ... well im sure i dont need to do a perdictable anagly of inuendo,they slid into the ground like a $100 bill slides into the pocket of a currupt cop, well certenly the ground was more perertrble then the nicotine adicted hot girl,
Some people are arseholes when they drink , RH stops being an arsehoe when he has a drink.
next morning we are photographed climbing steep paths going through deep puddles recklessly and generally possing and riding in a way that exagerates the hardships. but not RH he sends someone else to test the water before he dares entre it, may be he is afraid of water the evidence so far would surgest so, he is in a part of the planet furthest aways from any sea, sanwiched between russia ,china and monglia, perhaps it comes from living in a land locked country.
we come to a river there is a potensial to cross it, its not necessary but ti would make a great photo. i volenteer to do it. i learn alot of lessons in a very short time,
1. water in rivres has a strong current that messes with your steering in an unprdictable way.
2 always put your electroinics in plastic bags and take phones out of pockets,
3. never trust a wuss sponserd austrian.
i go in ,i soon loose balance and i go down. right down bike on river bed, me totally submurged. i come up smiling but im not in a good position glenn comes straight in to help me, alex for some reason stops taking photos but doesnt come in the river, and RH reluctantly paddles in, we lift the bike up and push it out,
'quick my feet are getting wet' yells RH . im not quite sure im hearing this, my bike is dead as are my phones, my camers, my voice recorder, and fully clothed im my bike clothing i have been immursed in freezing river water and he is complaning about his feet. i dont think i need anymore comfirmation about his charactor.
the bike starts up, but all electroniccs are dead. we ride out to the main road, boots full of water, the warm wind is doing its best to dry me out, i strip in a cafe and ring more water out of my boots.
that night we spend in an awful town, burning cars as you approach is not a good sign a big milatry town , but im kind of used to that.but even in such an arse end of a beautiful country still some gold toothed smiles and friedly help to find a cheap stinking ugly hotel, it will have to do. the only thing to do here is drink, so we do our best to fit in, have close encounters with a strange kind not so much heavy drinking but a life of serious abuses. not nice and then wehn i deicid dispite the fact that i have avoided several vodka sessions it is time to sample the clear poision, i buy a bottle for 40p. God it is so smooth, what have i been missing. this stuff is good. but as photos are transfured to memeory sticks and harddrives we are told by and angry babooska its time for us to go to bed. down load has still 24 minutes to go, we ignore her, and then 3 bulshy and very authoritive police come and force us out of the 'hotel bar'. it could get very nasty, i know whne its time to submit, i wont hand the passport over as they request, i go to my room lock the door and the situation seems to disapear, but it could have got very nasty in this strange and incestious little town. in the morning in my my not to musty head i thank the hangover police and realize they did me a favoure
i share a room with glenn for 1st time and instread of sleeping we make fun of RH and realize its time for us to split.
in the morning as we pack we have the inevitable on looker and good mornings but followed by begging for money, this is a side in KAz i have not seen it adds to its diversity but i could do with out it.
i spot a bolt comming out of my sub frame, this is serious stuff and it reiterates that i need to slow down and do more mintance , more thinkin more personal ,stuff, more intergration and less tourateching.
I get a txt from the germans i traveled with , they are in mongolia now and really having a hard time. I fret about it as we ride and the day turns dark cold and cloudy like my thoughts, noting is garrennteed and may be i cant reach my destination. I have to put the lining in my jacket it was removed in poland 6 weeks ago. i pack away my fingerless gloves only to find my proper gloves are soaked from the river crossing and i squeeze out the water and put them on along with my heated grips , how can the weather change so quickly?, then that wonderful thing happens when a single headlight is spotted up ahead and as it gets closer the silver of panniers becomes visable, its 2 austrailains in the 50’s easily, just come from Mongolia they mark their route on my map say its hard but not so hard its dangerous, and from a morining of fretting and freezing i go to an afternoon for anticipation and thawing, ive not worn so many cloths since sweden i had consiered sending them back, but i appriciate them now. The road is muddy filthy and fun. Its easy to ride in the cold, no warter stops means no piss stops and millage is acheived
The last nail is hammered into the coffin of this group of 4 when we stop to talk to a german registered 4x4 the driver speaks english for me but RH inturupts our converstaion with german and i know its time to let him wonder the rest of his journey oblivious to peoples feelings and locals offers, to hospality and invertations. im done with this rude and offensive guy. 'english or german, english or german' becomes his chant when people speak to us
last night it was time to say it was time. we had been joined by a finnish guy who was so pelased to be in company after a solo ride from Valdivostock but when me and glenn were forced to tell the touratech twins that we were missing the challenge and a group of 4 was too big, which was met with resentment and anger by alex who has feelings and by indifference by RH who is oblivious to anything, the fin photographs us all simply pleased to be in company despite the atmosphers, it was almost funny, almost but the pressure was unbearable all i wanted to do was go, but we were stuck at the table, poor alex he is stuck , committed to an arsehole because of sponsership, we were his oppertunity to enjoy the trip. we hurt his feelings and his disopointment revealed its self in anger and conflict, hes in touch with him self and as we sit out other day in out room and he heads for the russian boarder i know he has already worked out in his hlemet that it was not aimed at him. he was just the victim of a bad partenership.
We are in Semey at the moment where for 40 years the russians exploded 460 nucular bombs we past the grave yard on the way in, it was big and new, there are ongoing problems with health and births here from the radiation,some travlers wont stop here but i dont care, i i grow another head i'll just buy another lid, once again i find my self in a town where all the women are beautiful and they look healthy enough to me, in fact they glow,
I love this country, its been 3 amazing weeks, i will definatly return, i have resivations of singing its prises too much as we are so special as tourists and motorcyclists its made this trip unforgetable, evey stop at the side of the road a car pulls over to shake my hand, take my photo, share a smile. These people are for real. And i think there future is very bright
when hot chicks disapear monklet smiles
when hes constantly on video monklet smiles
when he is submugged in icy river water he smiles and when the atmosphere is as thick as Kazakhstan friendship some how he manages to smile
and with relife but none of the mega pixel photos or video that was taken of us me and my new travel buddy are drinking red wine and smiling too
love flid
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