Brake, broke, need a break.

Here I go again, 11 weeks on the road and once again I set off with butterflies in my tummy, but no alcohol, I’ve been drinking every night for a very long time now, I need to detox, dry out a bit. Travelling alone I have not peer pressure and no temptations. Alone onto the back tracks of Mongolia. Off the paved roads and back onto the dirt,
full tank, a map that is right more often than it is wrong, and once again the sense of adventure and challenge is full on , I stop to reduce my tyre pressure when I leave the paved road, oh right I’ve just realized something, because of all the weight I carry my bike is practically vertical when its one the side stand, I usually try to find a hole to put it in, and lately it’s been ok in Ulaan Baatar, I thought it was because I sent some heavy stuff back with mother, but now I’m back on dirt with reduced tyre pressure I realize that is the reason my bike is lower and so vertically unstable . All these misdiagnosed things, so may be my rear shock is not as bad as I thought. Pot hole, bang, bottom out, spine shatter, oh yes it is.
 
It’s good to go at my own slow pace, stop to drink water whenever I want, for photos of wildlife. For a while now little things that look like baby turtles have shuffled across my path and now I have the time to turn round and see what they really are. Not turtles is the answer, more like miniature armadillos, right well that’s cleared that up. And so concludes the mistaken reptile / edentata lesson.
Once again the dirt road forks, this time it goes either side of a big hill which is probably not big enough to be a mountain unless it was in Essex. I decide with the help of my map my compass and the sun to head in a northwest direction on the right hand track. It feels strange to be heading west after so long heading east but I just haven’t had enough of Mongolia yet and want to see a bit more. Then the road splits again. Bugger there is a limit to my common sense and instinct ya know, stop bloody splitting you bastard track. I pass the Essex Mountain and what happens? The tracks all come together again, one went round morning side of the mountain and the other round the twilight side of the hill, there was a ger. So now what shall I worry about? The scenery is ok but not amazing; I’m I just getting complacent? I had my first pangs of homesickness the other day, it’s a strange ailment, no amount of logic or reason will ease it. I think it was bought on by staying in the same room for a few days; I took a girl I’d met out for a ride to the Chinggis Khaan statue, like ya do. I realized for the first time I was popping out, not leaving permanently I was off out for a ride. It felt like the sort of thing I would do at home (the Essex/Suffolk boarder religion being littered with statues of 13th century Asian warriors) I also tidied a bit. Cus I was continuing to stay in the same room, these things are not in my usual travel itinerary, cleaning house and then out for a ride. Homesickness comes in many forms, one of the symptoms was missing everyone I had met along the way, on the road, but I was just in missing mood today.
I want to be doing this diversion, this indirect route out of Mongolia for fun and adventure not for the hell of it, where has the awe gone?
Off to the right a town appears,
not very big but more substantial than a ger camp. There was a distance 2 story brick building. It still amazes me that these tiny indistinct unmarked dirt tracks lead to such a significant inhabited area, but maybe that’s the way they like it.
So bearings are back and I continue on, not exactly sure how far I will get today or where I will stay, panniers are full of food, my hunger can be kept at bay for over a week but my thirst for only 24hours but there are more rivers than supermarkets so I think I’ll be ok
I head towards a mining town that was quick, I had read about this but in my haste to turn the map in my tank bag over prematurely to show my progress, I had lost track of my err track. So I head towards the mining town there were lots of piles of , the stuff that was dug out in an effort to find whatever they were mining for, I think it might be copper, and their concludes the lesson on Mongolian natural resources. It wasn’t a nice town, not a good vibe, kids panned in puddles at the bottom of piles with pales and boys rode round on motorcycles holding metal detectors across their laps, and there was heavy plant and excavating machinery. I stopped to get water and drew a silent staring crowd; yeah this place aint on the tourist trail is it?
I find the row of telegraph /power lines which usually indicate a road and head out, I find a well travel road and figure this is the way out of town. Then a puddle, not just puddle a totally flooded road, muddy water of indeterminable depth which spread to the banks either side. I decide to take the muddy bit to the left. Big mistake the mud turned out to be 2 foot deep and I sank down below my axles. Keep going, come on, my chain was covered in mud the back wheel mainly spun but pushed me forward a little. I headed for the higher ground but that just stopped me dead. I was well and truly stuck, I couldn’t push it, it wouldn’t move, it stood up by its self, so at least I could take a photo.
Well I’m stuck here nothing I can do. A minivan came by, full of gold toothed miners or possible polished copper. Not the kind of people I really want to be in the debt of. But once they sailed through the puddle they stopped and produced a rope. I put it round my forks and 3 of them pulled like miners verses a force that wouldn’t budge (like a Thatcherite government) tug of war. The rope was at an angle and it took all my strength to not have the bike pulled over. Out it popped, now I’m really at their mercy, I’m in a very vulnerable position, I say ‘thank you’ and they repeat ‘thank you’ back to me. I show them my map and they point back the way I came, oh shit, really? Back through the mud?
‘No dumb arse on the other side?’ I’m pretty sure that’s what they said in Mongolian , well it needs washing anyway, so I turn around and went through the puddle that I now know for sure is not as deep as a minivan and I break on through to the other side. Phew, well that was exciting, or something.
Back to the mining town there was a little police box with a couple of coppers in it I take them my map, no one seems to be able to point to where I actually am, this place is not marked at all, but he writes downs 11km and points so I go off not quite the way I came, I go the other side of the hill and oh would ya just look at that? A ‘T’ junction and a bridge, if only I’d have gone the twilight side of the hill. Back on the right road, I go through a few puddles to wash off the mud.

I meet a cyclist from Spain, ‘need any water?’ His English is poor but he, makes up for it in enthusiasm, ‘err, how um, did, da, you, errm, ship, your, eh, bike here?’
‘I rode it here’
‘Oh wow, like em, ya know, have err, you seen that, um, Ewan McGregor, em...’
I know what’s coming
He’s very nice but I just want to ride.
So I say goodbye, and headed straight into the setting sun, I just don’t do that on my east bound journey; actually it’s a pain in the arse. I could really use both hands on the bars but one is keeping the sun out of my eyes.
Crops? Crops in Mongolia? How am I supposed to camp when they are growing fields of wheat, I think its wheat, and so concludes the Mongolian arable lesson.
It’s getting dark the hills have throw a much appreciated shadow over me. I find a little spot away from, but still insight of a ger camp. I park my bike put my bike trousers over my reflective panniers, and pitch my tent behind the bike, in a attempt to be low profile, pretty stupid really when I’m camped in their garden. For the first time in weeks I get out my stove and hide the flame behind the bike I really don’t want visitors, vodka wielding visitors, I cook my pasta and crouch in the fading light to eat it, washed down with water, my liver is a little confused and probable relived, take the night off and may be tomorrow too, I’ll let you know one day at a time.
A full moon rises and illuminates me like a big neon arrow saying foreigner camping here, bugger, but no problem no visitors.
I lay in my tent, it’s like listening to a sound effects tape, the barking dogs protecting the gers and heards in the silent night, the horses winnie (is that what they do? Yeah or nay?) Then the cows defiantly moo, geese fly over head making their call to the straggles to get back in arrow formation, but what keeps me awake is the sounds I don’t recognise.
I never sleep well camping alone, particularly when I’m not well hidden
In the morning a big mushroom has appeared by my tent, I’m sure that wasn’t their last night. I bet that was one of the sounds that startled me in the night a mushroom popping out of the ground. If no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?
I heard of cattle wonder past,
I pack up and off I go, a river comes and meets the road, bugger, that would have been a much better place to stay the night, I stop and wash in it anyway.
The road ascends away from the river it doesn’t seem that steep but the bike is struggling
It’s really sluggish, when the town of Bulgan appears the bike is reluctant to descend the hill into it. I stop to find the rear break smoking the mud must have dried and seized it on, it’s really hot, and I bet if it was dark the disc would be glowing. If I put water on it, it may crack if I don’t all I can do is sit and watch the rubber seals burn. Bollocks. I prise the crumbling disc pads away from the disc.
I go into town. Ever optimistic I hope all will cool and be ok.
Stop for fuel, ‘good morning’ the attendant says
‘Good morning, how are you?’
‘I’m fine thanks, how are you?’
‘Oh I’m ok’ I’ve deviated from the phrase book and he has no answer to that, I could pick it up with ‘what lovely weather it is we are having for the time of year’ but I really can’t be arsed.
Out of town on paved road and I have no back brake, I stop and change the pads
Still no break I stop again and pump it hard and watch fluid pour over the disc. Bollocks.
On top of that Monklets’ helmet has started to crack. It’s all going pearshapped.
Just as the scenery was getting good. Just as the road had turned to aphelt. Shit this is big, very big; turn around big, what now big, new plan big.
My Mongolian show was over I had decided to do a little encore before I hit the Russian stage and now its curtains.
Well, might as well turn round, there is paved road all the way,
But to where? do I go north to Russia? What is the likely hood of a Kawasaki dealer there? Or back to the familiar UB, I have a couple of hours before that ‘T’ junction to think about it. Is this small black seal going to be the end of my trip? I’m tired, really tired, I’m dirty I’m hot; researching the next phase of Russia has seemed more like a chore that excitement. May be I should just call it a day; after all I achieved my goal. Do I ship the bike, selling it is unlikely and means paying duty and taxes, scraping it is just so wrong, bureaucratically the easiest option but I just can’t do that to it, financially it doesn’t owe me much but I owe it more than a death of disembowelment in a Mongolian scrap yard. All these indecisions, all these options, solutions and no real plan, I get to the ‘T’ junction, I’ve decided to go back to UB. I stop to get fuel; the girl speaks good English, ‘where are you from?’
‘England’
‘You rode all the way here?’
‘Yes’
‘Are you tired? ‘
‘Yes, really tired, exhausted, and dirty, and my bike is broken,’
‘You want hot tea?’
‘No thanks I have water’
‘How do you ride if your bike is broken?’
‘Carefully’
‘May be you can get your part in this town, stay here’
‘No I think I will go to Ulaan Baatar’
‘Your monkey has a pretty smile’
‘Thanks’
‘He is always smiling?’
‘Yes exactly, he is always smiling’ but not me, I’m too tired to indecisive, exhausted from the road, weary, dirty, unappreciative. Baby I’m just totally fucked.
If this was an opportunity I passed it up, actually as I write I realize of course it was an opportunity, oh well.
I don’t like this part of Mongolia it’s paved and industrialized. It has train tracks and even signposts
Back to town just in time for rush hour. I’m riding far too aggressively for one brake and after such a long day on the road as well as being sleep deprived.
I try to slow myself down, despite it all I’m not hurt, don’t fuck ya self up now, when ya so close. I over take a car on a bridge, I should have given a warning hoot, it’s the way it’s done but I don’t bother and as I over take him he swerves into my path to overtake the bus in front of him, I jump over further, we may have made contact, I jerked so violently out of his way I’m not sure if was jumping or was I pushed I stay on the bike and blast out of the situation too fast for a heavy bike with only one brake, I make it back to my guest house, I should have done it slower, more carefully, I just wasted a life.
They offer me a shared ger with a deathly ill and incoherent French man,
No, I don’t like sharing, never have I hate dorms no matter what form they come in, back packing 20 years ago I hated them and I still do now. I get a ger to my self

I contact my a riding buddy in England to get the ball rolling on my parts and sleep for 12 hours
Do I ship it, abandon it, fix it, sell it; do I go home, or onward?
I realize I’m just exhausted, the week off with mum was not a week off it was just different travelling.
I’m sleeping 11 hour nights.
Everything happens for a reason, the brake, has broke, I need a break. I get a break whilst I wait for my brake.
When we are faced with tugging miners' monklet smiles
When mushrooms make me jump he smiles
When his helmet cracks monklet smiles
When he sees me miss an opportunity he smiles his prettiest smile
And now we wait for and take a break, he has his relaxed smile.
When I’ve had a rest I will smile again too.

Everything happened for a reason

What I really wanted was to go take my mum to see some snowy mountains but due to roads, distances and time we opted for a less strenuous route. For a 75year old on a crutch I think my mum did brilliantly, we even stayed in a ger at the always chilli White Lake. It had the obligatory stove/log burner in the centre radiating heat like a ... well like a radiator really. That, combined with the equally obligatory destination reached jager shot keeps out the cold
After a trip to the restaurant Ger for dinner, our unattended stove had gone out, so I went off to get some matches but was mistaken for the sort of person who can only produce heat with the turn of a thermostat and was accompanied back to my cold accommodation by the resident fire starter. Patronized and inflamed we were left in warmth and peace. Apart from the sound of our vodka drinking partying driver next door. Gers may be good for heat insulation but sound travels through them like an Al-Qaeda pilot through a skyscraper.
I decided that if I sleep without bed cloths every time the stove needed topping up I would get cold and wake up, there by keeping the fire in all night, I was up for staying up all night and being the keeper of the flame. It’s been 4 years since I moved from my house and log burner, and I miss it so much, only thing I miss more about that house was the shed. Which was my own western ger although not quite as movable due to its concrete base, but then, I didn’t find rodents in there like I did in this one. Hitting a rodent hiding in a bread bag with a water bottle is completely ineffective by the way, unless you want to encourage them to retreat to you spare blanket. I would rather have used him to increase the fuel and wood situation.
Any way I fell asleep and the fire went out, I spent a happy hour slicing up logs into kindling with my Swiss army knife with just my head light on so as not to wake mother, I did look up at one point and realized I had filled the ger with smoke, I opened the door and saw my driver being held up by his mate and both staggering to the toilet area. Great, that will be an interesting drive tomorrow. I got the fire a light but by 1.30am I thought bugger this and shook my blanket vigorously to evict the rodent and curled up underneath it. (the blanket, not the rodent)
At 6am I light the fire from scratch, see I’m a fire starter too and my trail of smoke from the top of my ger was my flag of victory. I was very chuffed with myself.
It had snowed in the night the mountains were beautiful with their fresh white new autumn hats on.
Couldn’t get to the snowy mountains in time but the snowy mountains came to us. How cool. Surprisingly, driver was awake and looking a lot better than he did last night, so we had a scenically enhanced drive to the town where my bike was waiting for me, I was itching to get working on it. Or was that the blanket from last night?
In the few days since I had left it at the guest house they had decided they were going to move the coal shed and so clumsily and heavy-handedly but with the best intensions my bike had been moved, picked up by things that wont bear its weight, guards and rails were bent and twisted, I can’t be angry. They put in inside the guesthouse, it was a lovely gesture. So my hope that in a week of shelter it would dry out and fire up was, I suppose, optimistic but ya gotta have hope haven’t ya? It wouldn’t fire so I start to strip it down, I hoped in the dark but private storage room I might avoid the inevitable audience but as soon as I started work on the bike along comes maintenance man with his soup and he sits on a pile of cement bags and slurps annoyingly, whilst his soup burns his mouth his eyes burn into my back. Dam it.
I have a spark. Good, check carb, I have juice running through, ok, I also have a dying battery, I was expecting that. So I get the bike out into the cold sunshine, now or driver is keen to help too.
I don’t work like this, i like to work alone, slowly methodically, stopping lots, considering, thinking, I can’t work with someone looking over my shoulder and every time I stop to think he’s wanting to pull off another part, I don’t strip carbs on dusty ground but he persuades me to and surprise surprise I drop a screw and we lose it. He had another one; does he think he’s helping? Is this for me or for him? is he being gracious or is this being done for gratitude? I wouldn’t have lost the screw in the first place if I had done it my way. We take it out the front to jump it off the 4x4 ,now we have an even bigger audience. But I do find the original screw. I have spark, I have fuel, it turns over but will not start. I rode it 200 feet from one hotel garage to this one, that was over a week ago, then I cleaned off the tar, bolted on the bits that had fallen off and that’s all, why won’t it start? I put in oil, too much? We had been working on it for 5 hours, its cooling down the light is going and the bike still isn’t. Eggy, the driver wants to try bumping it. Its turning over fine what difference will bumping make?
‘It won’t work’ ok just to shut you up we’ll try to bump it’
I start to wheel it to the road; no he wants to do it on the dirt
‘The wheel will just lock up and skid’
Ok just to humour you we will do it this way, I get on the saddle less bike, and no he wants us both to push,
‘Look its gotta have weight over the back wheel ‘
This is futile, ok come on let’s get it over with.
I put it in second gear, pull in the clutch, we push, we run I let out clutch ready to control the skidding back wheel as it locks in the dirt, but it doesn’t lock ,it turns, turns the engine over and the engine fires and the bike starts.
What the fuck? I’m simeltaiunously happy and humiliated, who would have thunk it? But why? It’s beyond any logic I have, beyond any technique I would have applied, I take it up the street, well aware that most fasteners are loose and tank etc isn’t even attached. Listen to that engine quiet smooth and strong. I’m bemused. So I turn it off and once again it turned over on the starter but wont fire. We put it all back together, push again, same method 2nd gear on dirt with no weight over the back tire and again it starts, well buggered if I know, at least this way I can get it to Ulaan Baatar. It has not been a very satisfying fix it been a stressful afternoon. Its running I don’t know how or why, what was wrong? what still is wrong? nothing has been diagnosed.
Mother has been in the restaurant all afternoon chatting to an English/Malaysian girl, I love that she can just get on and do this travelling malarkey, so I shower with the hot water and dry on the IKEA towels (yes, that guest house) and with jager in my blood , buzz in my head, bike on my mind and grease down my nails, we 4 go have dinner, its arranged that our new friend will take my seat in the 4x4 tomorrow as I follow on the bike, she will keep mum company and it will save her the bus experience.
So next morning for first time in over a week I put on my bike cloths and helmet, check over my bike and with the audience of well wishers, and passersby I sit on it and with my eternal optomisium , turn the ignition and press the starter button and it bloody starts. WHAT THE FUCK?
Everybody’s happy, I suppose I’m happy, intermediate faults which disappear are not good for confidence in the reliability of ya bike. But its running and I keep it running whilst I fill up with fuel, I have obviously trapped a throttle cable under that tank cus the throttle wont snap back I now have cruise control but under the circumstances that’s not a bad thing cus I don’t want to be stalling or Turing off the ignition.
And we’re off, bloody hell look at that, the adventure is back , I’m independent, I’m free, I’m riding again, navigating, negotiating the terrain, I’m vulnerable again but on the plus side i can fart freely, I’m out in the big wide open country and the sky is blue the day is warming I’ve got my fingerless gloves on and my heated grips, and over my shoulder is snow capped mountains of wild Mongolian weather and in front of me is a 4x4 support vehicle, carrying half my luggage, hang on a minute that sounds familiar, oh my god all I need now is an extra cylinder and a Scottish accent, neither of which are likely but I do fall off in the mud so it’s quite an accurate re-enactment.
I keep the engine running and lift it up by myself, sloppy mud all over my screen and monklet. In the the last week my confidence had gone and my hardened arse has lost some of it hard seat endurance. After a few hours it’s like I was never off the bike, I’m up and down the gears, loving the dirt roads, racing the 4x4. i beat him on the bumps but he loses me on the smooth bits.
Standing on the pegs splashing up the mud, Other from being on the back of my bike my mum is seeing firsthand what I my ride has been like. Some time we are on adjacent tracks and side by side she can hear the thumping exhaust see the dirt fly and best of all photograph it too.
After about 80 miles we stop, Eggy encourages me to kill the engine, well ok I suppose we can always bump it, but it starts again on the button and continues to do so for the next 300 miles and 8 hours to U.B.
There are things called Ovoo’s they are stone cairns covered with offerings of scarves and money, it’s a Buddhist /Shamanic thing, you can walk round them 3 times for luck of if you don’t have the time you just honk ya horn 3 times, Eggy does it all the time, now with a fully charged battery I indulge in the ritual.
Everything happened for a reason, because of my bike not starting last week, I am now riding the stunning scenery in beautiful weather, I’m escorted by my mother in a 4x4 I’m appreciating the bike all the more, and I don’t know if its coincidence or not but somehow since I hooted at that Ovoo the day just got a little brighter, not overexposed brighter, just awareness brighter. It’s also a very auspicious day, its 5 years since my dad died, and if he could ever see I’m sure under this bright blue sky ( i know i keep saying that but is really is bright and blue) in this vast expanse of land framed between hills, unlined by rivers, he’s looking at me and mum as she leans out the passenger window with her camera taking photos of me riding by her side and he’s rolling his eyes and thinking ‘good on ya’ see I always said we were goanna be ok, me and mum.
As I get nearer to Ulaan Baatar in-between thoughts of booking hotels, bike parking, luggage removal and what the possibilities might be of getting into our new travel companions knickers, I realize I’m about to get to my destination, I’ve been here a week ago but that wasn’t on the bike. This was always the plan, I sat the winter in the freezing trailer saving money and researching the trip and telling anyone who would listen I was going to ride to Ulaan Baatar. It was a world away and now it’s only an hour away and not only am I about to achieve the dream, but I’m accompanied by my mother on the anniversary of dads death. How cool is that? Fuckin cool, that’s how.
It would also be a great little bonus if I can get laid too, the last time was the day before I bought the bike, it’s been a great year for adventure and achievement but a shite year for sex, having just accomplished the mission the bike was bought for wouldn’t it be brilliantly, poetically, ironically, perfect to get a little more nookie before the next destination, it’s a bloody long way to come for a shag.
It all goes well , bike is garaged rooms are booked jager is consumed, meal is eaten, mother is off to bed, bar is attended, beer and cocktails are drunk and so are we, conversations get more personal, body piercings are mentioned but not revealed, but it’s a good sign, isn’t it? The bar closes we get into the glass lift on the outside of the hotel, isn’t this romanti... floor is reached, door opens, and girl is gone. Fuck it, dam and shit. Oh well off to the room and crash on the couch.
When I come back to get him, monklet smiles
When the intermittent fault comes he smiles
And when it goes he smiles.
When we bump the engine into life monklet smiles
With ritualistic horn honking monklet smiles
And when the sleeps in the garage of a good hotel and I pass out on the couch, monklet keeps on smiling.
Ok let’s see if we can make it to Vladivostok.
Love Flid

From biker to backpacker

When a friend was approaching his 50th birthday party in a divine flash of drunken inspiration I thought a stripper would be a great idea. In the cold soba light of morning when I considered the implications, some of the guests, his mother for example I was less convinced of my faultless plan this indecision continued for several weeks of drinking and sobriety and eventually the conflict was over with a short Google search and few clicks and a credit card number. I was, she was committed... I ordered petite from West Thurrock, I think perhaps that has a different meaning in Thurrock to the rest of the world, must be a Greys area, either that or I was the lucky one who happened to order when she was running a promotion of buy one get 25kgs free.
It all worked out pretty well, the mother was removed before the cloths were.
I had another divine flash of drunken inspiration camped in a Mongolian valley. But rather than removing the mother I decided it would be great to fly her over for her 75th. The dawn was colder and far more sobering but the idea remained and with more clicks and credit card numbers this too became a reality.
One minute mother was waiting on visas whilst I chilled in a Christian run guesthouse which I couldn’t seem to leave, with its hot water showers, IKEA towels and bacon sandwiches, and then one night I got a txt to saying she would be arriving in 36 hours.
So being the dutiful son I didn’t drink at all that night well only one beer so it doesn’t count.
Next morning bright and early I pulled open the curtains before the alarm even went off to find early was all it was, the sky was low and very wet., undeterred I had one more hot water shower one more rubdown with an IKEA towel and one more sandwich. Packed up bike which was now fully maintained and restored if not to its pre Mongolian existence at least the parts were bolted into the relevant positions as opposed to strapped and bungeed on top of panniers. I said my goodbyes and in freshly laundered cloths I went into the pissing wet morning sat on my soggy sheepskin seat and pressed the starter. Engine turned over ...and over...and over and didn’t fire. I checked the obvious, kill switch etc. and still nothing. bugger, I decide the best option under the circumstances was to hope harder and keep pressing the start button.. Nothing, check the petrol, yep seems to have some I didn’t use it all getting off all the tar. Ok so I wheeled it back into the yard, but there is no shelter at all. In a futile attempt I hung my poncho over a washing line and knelt on a plastic bag I was sweating on the inside and getting soaked by the relentless rain on the outside a row of raindrops hung off my open visor... The next thing to do is check for spark but with my over size tank I have to take off side panels and seat, but to take off the seat I now have to take off the spare tyre which means taking off top box which now due to broken lock has to be emptied of sleeping bag etc and unbolted all this to unbolt said tank to get to sparkplug. Fuck that. And in this weather in a muddy puddle yard it was not a pleasant task. this is not fixing weather this is plan b weather ‘when does the bus leave to Ulaan Baatar?’
‘8am’
It was already gone 8. But there is a minivan at 2pm ok maybe I can get that ‘you have to buy ticket now’
So the ever helpful maintence man went to buy my ticket and I decided to give up on the bike. I was allowed to put it in the coal shed as long as I came and got it before end of august when it would be used once again for coal storage.
So soaked through I took off panniers and went back to restraunt for a cup of tea not cus I particularly wanted one but because at times like this I remember I’m English and its what we do in the face of adversity and despair, reassess my options and retell my story again and again as other guests enquired as to why I was still here. So it’s time for a transformation I had to mutate into a backpacker. I had to go to market to buy a bag and then if there was enough time I better dread my hair and pierce my eyebrow. But after I got back from market I was so wet I simply couldn’t do a thing with my hair.
In actually fact with this holdall I haven even switched allegiance to the backpacker ferturnaty I’m simply a bag person. The good christian owners wanted nothing for bike storage and safe keeping of panniers; soon as trust deserves trust in return I gave them my keys. And once again said my goodbyes and headed for the collection of puddles and mud which was called the bus station. One last handshake and one last comment, ‘Graham, try and find Jesus’ well I had an awful lot of replies for that one, witty, sarcastic, offensive, flippant,, factual, argumentative dismissive, provocative, blasphemous, hysterically heretic, antagonistic, and agnostic, but in my now tried, tested and well practiced diplomatic manor I managed to keep my mouth shut and if I said anything at all it wasn’t faithless. And I’m not faithless, I have a strong belief in Karma and I also believe that everything happens for a reason. I wasn’t meant to ride my bike today...
I found the minivan and the bulshy driver insisted I sit on the end seat that faces the rear of the van.
‘no I can’t I have to face the direction of travel or ill throw up,’
but graphic visual explanations and even a healthy bribe would not change my assigned seat I was seat 5 and at this short notice I should apparently consider myself bloody lucky to have a seat at all. I think he was probably saying. And when the 11 seater van had been filled with 18 Mongolian adults 2 babies and a wet and resentful westerner, one hour behind schedule we set off.
The space between my seat and the one facing me was wide enough to get my leg in, due to bags stuffed behind my seat the back was vertical and posture was of Ryan air positioning didn’t have the room to slouch. Personal space goes out the window, there’s no room for that in here. I’m I glad I’m not fat; 2/3rds of my arse has a seat I’m bolt upright and facing the wrong direction. I try to turn to see out of the rain distorted windscreen to at least follow the muddy track and anticipate the direction of swerving so as not to bring on travel sickness, this is no trip for runny bum or puking. Well actually with a single swift window opening movement from the woman opposite me I realize puking is actually ok and that there is an advantage to being in the rear facing seat. When after an hour or so the mud turns to paved road and I can re-a-line I realize that all eyes are on, I’m used to being stared at but i’m also used to having a helmet to hide behind. This is intense head on face to face staring all I can do is put on iPod and look out of the window. We have a brief piss stop and the bottom half of a plastic water bottle is offered to me, it contains clear liquid, I know exactly what it is. I take a polite sip and offer it back its clearly indicated that I should drink the lot, no problem I shoot the whole lot back in one gulp and simultaneously get a good little buzz and a bit of respect. Now I sit with a nonchalant smile and I can return eye contact, I wonder if they can tell I’m not focusing.
We pass 3 laden bikes they are polish registered our driver hoots and passes with inches to spare, it’s interesting to see how the respect he has for them matches the clearance he had given them, on muddy potholed roads in the poor visibility of driving rain this is really dangerous and my discomfort is not so bad after all, they look miserable in their waterproofs, prior to this experience whenever I passed a tourist bus or minivan and saw the passengers crammed inside I rejoiced in my freedom and independence, it was as if I had Jesus in my heart, but now I’m happy to be here I getting a new experience, I am plenty experienced in riding in the rain.

Its cold, not freezing, but the wrong side of comfortable. The body contact is actually quire welcome, babies are held on the breast, on the lap and eventually on me, i have knee to knee contact, thigh to thigh, eye to eye and now I have 4 little Mongolian feet resting in my lap and surprisingly I actually quite like it. Where the hell did this tolerance come from?
I thought it was about a 7 hour journey but when there was no more light left we stopped for food and I was told we were half way, oh shit.’
I’m given another shot of vodka, there is quite a comerardie on this bus but best of all is the music, a CD plays and its local music the everyone is familiar with the passengers are evenly split gender wise and with and 70 year plus age range I wonder if there are speakers in the rear, but it’s the perfectly in tune and harmonic voices of my fellow passengers, they sing the chores so well, not the drunken crooning of a bunch of tourists on the way back from a wine tasting excursion to their Spanish hotel in coata chav, but the from the heart, from the bottom of the lungs and gently into the ear, enhancement of a traditional Mongolian folk song,
I smile along appreciatively
Wouldn’t have even know what was going on inside those cramped little vans if the bike had started,
My head drops and nods around for a little while squashed in the comfort on cramped comeraride of the commute. i don’t think that would have been as evident if it were not for the cold conditions, heat I think would only cause irritability.
I keep my hand on the baby trouser leg that keeps riding up, to keep those tanned little legs warm and find myself just massaging with my thumb in a kind of la-le bye sleep inducing meditational manor but I’m not sure for whose benefit.. I beginning to feel the slightest paternal pang, I wonder where the hell that came from and wake myself right up, it’s followed by a waken screaming kicking baby and the feeling disappear as quickly as it arrived. I blame the cold, the vodka, the singing, the warmth, the buzz the atmosphere, I got loads of reasons, Are we nearly there yet?

The clue was the adverts, wait a minute for the last 9 hours we have been listening to CDs, now adverts, I look over my shoulder and see lights, more lights than I’ve seen since Russia, more that all the villages I’ve seen put together over the last 10 days, this is Ulaan Baatar, the destination I looked at so long its seemed a world away. it is a world away and to ride my bike so far seems very ambitious and almost impossible. And it was cus my bike sits in a coal shed 300 miles to the west and although I have made it to my destination I have left a smiling and dripping monklet on a sodden and dead bike and until all of us are all here together the mission is not completed.
But I’m working on that, but for now its operation mama, a week of 4 wheel travel and 2 wheel thoughts, and single destinations of hotel nights with attached bathrooms and no idea of what phase the moon is in or how cold the night is. And the canopy of stars will be over my roof not over my head, of clean nails, cleaner underwear, and single layers. From biker to bag person to tourist. And just like the balding straights who all my life have come up to me and said I used to have long hair like yours once, I feel the need to go up to every bike and tell them how I rode here and had a little breakdown. Why don’t I think I will have the credibility I deserve without announcing my achievement , so what if I’m a backpacker if I’m a hired 4x4 tourist I can justify any and all of it. When I get back on my bike will I be just as anxious to tell the bus passengers all pissing in the wind how I once rode a bus to the air conditioned 4x4 tourists how I had also know how it is to sit in a back seat and let someone else drive and navigate.. So the overland trip has taken a turn a U turn back to where my bike is waiting for me, an indirect route of sightseeing and better hotels.
Theirs singing in my helmet and singing on the bus but here inside the 4x4 the isolation of the country outside is shown by the silence inside. Tinted windows and air-conditioning ,a zoom lens protrudes and is quickly retracted before flies and odours come inside.
I don’t really care I have a big bottle of duty free jagermister and the weight of it isn’t even an issue, Jager and mother you can have one without the other but like G&T they simply make the other more bearable.
And monklet?
Left in the shed like the baby Jesus
Well monklet I’m sure will have his only story to tell when we meet up and I’m sure it will make me smile.

Turn Right at the Camel

[Pictures coming soon]

Well I could say I have been composing this in my head as I have ridden through Mongolia, but it would be an utter lie, the dirt tracks which are main roads, the mud, the dust, the bumps, the potholes the complete and utter absents of any signposts together with the wondering yaks, camels horses, goats and sheep, not to mention the mind blowing scenery have fully occupied my mind and left it unable to think of anything other than the moment.

Well there has been one thing. It’s been in my head for weeks now. Well 2 things actually. When I left my house 9 weeks ago, I said to my neighbour when she said she wished she was coming with me, ‘there’s room on my horse for 2’ I still cringe when I think about it, where the hell did that come from? And anyway, there isn’t even room. So if the torture of my inappropriate reply is not bad enough since that day whenever there has been a quiet moment into my head pops Ralf Harris singing ‘2 little boys’. Its sheer agony and its takes intense concentration to find a song to sing over it. The other thing that has driven me to distraction is ‘where next?’ can’t I just be satisfied with Ulaan Baatar? But do I go back? Carry on? And why be so presumsious as to think that I might even make it there.

But back to my entry into Mongolia, it’s instant, as so many of the border crossings have been. Cross a state line and the next state bears a strong resemblance to the previous one but my change of countries since Poland have been dramatic and this one was phenomenal. Leave the paved maintained roads of modern Russia cross 25kms of no man’s land and into a wild wild country. It snowed at the border crossing beginning of August and it snowed. Then with the appropriate stamps in my passport I enter the country of my destination. No signs, no roads nothing but snow-capped mountains, dusty tracks and a vague sense of direction. My fist stop to decide what track to take when it forks I am approached by a man on horseback. Rapped in a long coat tied with a colourful scarf and a weather beaten face of leather skin and deep wrinkles that told a hundred stories none of which I know or could ever understand. I’m not a tourist here I’m an intruder. I don’t understand the first thing of his life and being in poession of a visa alone, I don’t think entitles me to be here. We are worlds and times apart, there is no comprehension of each other’s lives, but I ask if I can take his photo and he agrees, this wild man on his horse has ridden over to check me out, I have to assume he is friendly I’m on his territory, I’m vulnerable, not armed with language or knowledge and certainly not weapons or wisdom and he could have all of the above all I have is a throttle to get me out of any danger. His interest in me is short. Perhaps he’s seen the likes of me before perhaps we all look the same to him, whatever his reason to ride off into the vast and deserted landscape was you can bet it wasn’t cus his favourite soap was about to start.

I need to head south, I climb a mountain follow a track all I can see is mountains. Dark soil a single track. I’m here, I’m fuckin here. I’ve just ridden my bike to Mongolia and I’m scared and exhilarated, nervous and victorious, I’m unaware and aware of it. Thrown in the deep end of wild western Mongolia.

When I arrive in a new country I like to stay in a hotel and acclimatize for a few days. But I quickly discover that Mongolia does wilderness very well but the town and cities are awful. A lot of people drink a lot of vodka a lot of the time. Slurring drunk, dangerous drunk, unpredictable drunk, lean against ya bike till it falls over drunk. So whilst packing up my bike the following morning having slept badly and deciding at first light to wash myself and my dirty clothes on the communal sink in the stinking toilet with only cold water, before the other guests or inmates got up, I was approached by a man who speak good English,

‘How ya doin? Where ya bin? Where ya going?’ And all that, he produces a book, page by page map of this un-navagatable country with distances and bridges, river crossings and what townships have fuel, I’m so impressed , where can I get one from? He gave it to me. WOW, big WOW you have no idea what this means, you have with a single gesture completely changed my trip. Thank you so much, and if that were not enough he gave me his card and number to call if I have any problems or need translation.

This trip has been full of the goodness of humanity and my appreciation and gratitude seem so inadequate.

The map is written in cyllic. But that’s a good thing, I don’t have to read it but the people I stop to ask directions do.

I immediately head out of town 30 miles in the wrong direction, it’s not my fault, 6 different locals have told me this is the track and so did a solitary and illusive sign post. The thing is I don’t want to go the long way round, I want to go the way on my new map across these mountains, over these rivers, its 3pm and I’m back in the town I was so desperate to leave. I stop asking drunks and use some common sense and a basic sense of direction and I’m on the right road it’s next to the petrol station I filled up at 65 miles and 4 hours ago. But I’m stopped by the pigs. The president is coming down this road soon and until he does I’m not going anywhere, so I wait and sure enough in cloud of dust and scream of sirens a convoy of police cars and 4x4’s goes past I take photos of the first few but there must be 20 vehicles and I just put on my lid and wait for the word. I can go. And this is it I follow rivers through valleys and mountain ranges snow on the horizon, no signs of life ,of civilization, of anything, just a vast and endless timeless land, and I’m riding my bike through it. My bike I bought on eBay, transformed in my garage, and rode with determination and nervousness east 10,000 miles to get to this land.

Sometimes it seems like I’ve been here before, it’s just how I imagined only more so. A river to cross a real one not some photo shoot. Its fast running, knee deep. I’ve discovered that photos and videos do nothing to show the vastness of a river crossing, but stand on ya pegs behind the bars, fill ya boots with water, soak ya feet, slip ya clutch lean against the current and judge ya path avoid the rocks and bump up the far bank and the feeling of achievement is immense. I haven’t killed my phones or cameras, I just crossed a river mother fucker and I’m onward to the next obstacle. In the evening I stop in a tiny village two 4x4’s have arrived the same time German and Swiss couple we create a scene. 2 old men are looking at the bike, laughing and making fun of each other, one wants to put my helmet on and when he finally squeezes it onto his head he play fights with his mate probably lifelong buddies, and when I take their photos and show them, they thank me. I go into the little shop that sells shoes and clothes no bread but dried noodles, even here they have dried noodles, I have carried dried noodles I bought from Tesco’s for nine weeks and 9and half thousand miles as an emergency food and they are available here, it’s not that the noodles I carried were heavy but they take up precious space in my panniers, well I’ll know next time. Now I don’t feel like an intruder, I feel like a circus that had pulled into town the old men come for the matanet performance and wonder off to let the kids have their turn. One girl speaks English and is pushed to the front. ‘Do you even have an address? Does the post man come here ever? Could I send you photos? I don’t understand so many things. But I can laugh and I can speak with tones which make them laugh. And my brief encounter as my personal circus pulls out of town will fill all of our minds tonight.

But my night is not over. Cus where we make camp, we are in view of 2 riverside yurt camps and we have visitors. A man of indeterminate age and very bad teeth which are revealed in a constant smile arrives on his horse, and after some mutual and incomprehensible banter he offers to let me ride his horse, and I’m trotted off over the steepe like a ... like a biker on a horse, let’s be honest, I’m no more part of this world for this experience than he is part of mine as he giggles from behind me as I open up the throttle and show him how many horses I have under my tank. So we’ve shared our most personal passions and now we sit and he brings out his perfume, it must be perfume he asks me to sniff it, ‘what the top?’

‘No dumb arse take the top off’, he does it for me and some powder is attached to the stick ‘sniff this’ oh right now I understand. Sniff, snort, hit, bam, wow, cool, stick around, I like this shit.

We eat our pasta out visitors leave and I go to the warmth of the German camper for vodka under 12volt florescent light and we laugh and chat like the old travellers we are, backpacks long exchanged for more independent and comfortable forms of travel, still hungry for wonder and a thirst for new experiences but our desires are met in ways the guide books don’t describe. The tales we tell are not of our uni years but how we travelled before we had our on engines. Not better or worse just different and just how I want to be at this moment in time. Wouldn’t want to travel any other way once again I’m doing exactly what I want to.

And so it goes Mongolia doesn’t do civilization, or modernization well, it does wilderness best. Next morning I have possibly the best days riding I have ever had, the most fun you can have in 1st and 2nd gear, cross countless rivers and streams, over mountains, past headers and through ruts, bogs, over rocks and over every peak another view that leaves me knowing that only witnessing this first hand will ever really do it justice. Out of the blue eagle territory sky a sea gull appears it’s so unexpected and puts a song in my head, I end up playing the whole Bad Company album on my iPod and listen to the lyrics of the songs like never before, it was written for this ride, this morning, this terrain, it’s perfect.

I take tracks with confidence, cross rivers with hope, and camp out of site off of the beaten track.

The map is perfect. Well almost, there should be a turn off in 18 kms and there is, the track forks, then I need the next one in 25 kms but it doesn’t materialize, I pass a small lake, I’m supposed to be north of that, I’ve come to far, well I suppose if I just go back past the camels and do a right I should be in the right direction., there comes a point when I have simply got it wrong. I’m not where I think I am and at dusk I climb a hill to try to see the lake to give me a sense of direction. It’s so much north that it should be,

The nights are colds there is frost on my tent in the morning the sun warms up quickly but not as quick as heated handlebar grips do.

so next morning I make my own road, simply head across the grass land in the direction I feel is right, eventually I come across tyre tracks, I suppose, being nomadic a yurt is moved and after several trips have been made into town a track is created and if I follow that it will lead to another track that will get wider and dustier and lead me to town. Yeah I like that thought. But I’m not sure it is a reality. It keeps me going across uninhabited land I’m willing a town to appear out of the heat haze but it doesn’t, only the shadows of eagles over head cross my path , I pass a small Ger (that’s what they call yurts here) camp. And I do what at the time seems like the bravest thing I have ever done, I park my bike away from the settlement; just seems intrusive to ride up. I take my map and I walk towards the Ger. The family watch me, the dog’s barks, I stoop the ground to pick up a stone, the dong knows what this means and backs off. Steps take forever, my sole flaps, my heart pounds, my eyes scan, and my face holds prolonged and ineffective smile like a wedding photo. Finally I’m close enough to make facial expressions, I indicate back to the bike. Show the map. There intrigue overcomes their reluctance and they look at my map ‘I have to go past the camp and do a right’ ok, ok, ‘spar-cee-bar’ thank you. The boy calls to the dog not to fuck with me as I take the long walk back to my bike sighing hard and smiling victoriously, I rode past the camp and do a right and sure enough the flattened grass turns to track and leads to town, on the outskirts I stop to re strap my luggage which fell off on a misjudged dip and a man in traditional clothing stops to help me,, he offers me a pad lock and squats by my bike to get out his pipe and smoke it, he also thanks me for taking his photo or may be the thanks is for showing it to his daughter and making her giggle, look ya old man is in my camera, isn’t he cool?

I find a place that sells fuel wouldn’t call it a petrol station, the boy attendant seems perplexed that I’m not satisfied with 80 octane, my mate pulls up on his moped, his pipe extinguished his indications imply that 80 octane will be just fine, ‘and where exactly did you get your education on KLR’s 650’s? Ok ok just 5 litres then. Thank you.

I’m getting used to no road signs, getting used to using instinct, it’s a gift that is not used in our sterile western world, were signs tell us hot water is hot and responsibility cannot be taken for.... I’ve had this rant before but we really are crippling out selves deneighing out natural ability of judgement, I’m getting mine back, the hard bit is having faith in it and obeying it. But if the society I come from has its way, like our tails and appendix it will become something we once had or no longer have a use for.

I pass 2 Ladas both chez registered, I wave as I pass and cover them in my dust. Then when I stop for a slice of sausage on side stand bread they pass me. I call it side stand bread cus if ya park on soft ground and ya side stand sinks you can cut off slice and put it on the dirt and ya side stand wont penetrate the surface, when there are no rocks or cans available it’s the yeast ya can do.

The next time we pass we stop, 6 chez in 2 ladas, 4 boys 2 girls on a mission to buy gers and export them home, thereby helping the local economy. It’s very um... what’s the word... well its definatly very.

It was feeling ok but now I’m better, the input, the stimulation, the exchange, it revitalizes the thoughts in my helmet it’s either that or the biscuits and jam dip they put on bonnet that I tuck into as we tell our stories.

Later in a tiny town where I have stopped for water and told the cafe is not serving food, I got on my bike and it doesn’t start. I begin to pull it apart but get the inevitable audience. And noting is working, I manage to kill all the electrics, before it was at least bumpable now I have nothing, the Ladas arrive they find an open cafe and order food for me, I can’t fix it, not tonight with fading light and audience I’m tired and so dirty, electrical faults have to be considered, meditated on. I push my bike to the open cafe, and have dead animal noodle soup. It’s perfect, but I’m pre occupied, the locals have seen the contents of my panniers, and I can’t leave. But I can’t camp here in this town I will have to stay awake vigilant by my bike all night. In yet another act of limitless kindness the chez offer to not only push my bike out of town but to camp with me.

We try to tow it but the rope snatches and I fall off, so they take it in turns to push me, with deflated tyres for better traction on dirt road they take it in turns to push me out of town onto the steepe and then as the wind blows in a storm we busily and industrially erect out tents in the shelter of the cars as lightening strobes in the distance and we retreat to the shelter of out Gore-Tex and aluminium sanctuary, the wind blows so violently I don’t think my tent will take much more. It breaths in and out like a winded asthmatic marathon runner but it stays standing.

I’m up at first light take off seat and replace fuse, I have lights, bypass starter switch and it fires up. I may not know my bike inside out, but I know me, and I know when I work at my best and when I don’t work at all. But it’s not that simple, it’s rapidly turning into an intermittent electrical fault. The worst kind and the mechanical fault. The chez and me spend the next 3 hours tracing wires and bypassing connector blocks and getting nowhere, although despite no common language we respect and understand each other’s ability and work well together.

Somehow it works again but it’s no real victory as we don’t know what we’ve done. It’s been a pleasant and relaxed operation everyone has been patient and helpful, and I pack up bike and tell them I would like to buy them lunch if they have the time. they leave as they are slower than me and , when I hit the road within 5 minutes I come across them broken down and bonnets up. They insist I keep going and I ride the dirt into a black valley of rain.

I’ve leant the Mongolian word for food. And I stop at a yurt as the sky turns black and go inside

Hail and sunshine take it in turns to come through the roof. A family have entered before me, they occupy the bed and every other area, the log burner is in the middle with a big pot on it, (central heating) there is no menu, no choice, no need, I m hungry they have food, I simply sit and wait my turn, it smells good, and when oblong stainless plates are served with a kind of noodle and potatoes and onion with meat, it looks so good, I hope it tastes as good as it looks. When mine arrives it does not disappoint. It’s perfect food for the weather, it feels like November English Saturday afternoon, all it lacks is a hypnotic football commentary on the TV which as always induces sleep in me, and I yawn and wait out the storm outside, as the sides of the yurt resist the flapping the wind outside tries to cause. It feels so normal in here; babies are passed around and eventually put to the breast to keep them quiet. Family life goes on amides the uninvited diners, who would occupy every corner if only a round yurt had a corner. Colourful carpets hang from the walls and the occasional furniture is painter in Tibetan style patterns. Bones with meat still on them are stored under a bed and children of different ages stare with varying degrees of intrigue.

I’m filthy in not seen hot water since Russia, cant clean the road dirt off, I well beyond the capabilities of a wet wipe, I like to ride in fingerless gloves it gives me the dexterity to take photos and speak into my voice recorder the thoughts and observations of the day, but it has left my hands ingrained with dirt, bloody, dry and cracked with windburn.

The chez arrive as I leave they have another mechanical problem and I order their lunch and say goodbye, big waves and I’m being videoed and photographed as I pull away but with one had waving I stall the bike, it jolts and I lose my balance and fall off, backwards roll and I’m back up on my feet. 2 steps forward and lift the bike up and back on. You’d think I’d be getting better after all this time, but I’m just getting better at falling off. What an exit.

After 5 days I find a river to bathe in it feels so good, my bike is held together with cable ties and ratchet straps, my boots with duct tape, my bike cloths are filthy and just touching them blackens my hands, I haven’t seen my reflection for days other than a passing glimpse as I pass the mirrors as I fall off again.

I come off about twice a day. Trying to avoid a rut I went to close to a bank and the left-hand pannier caught it and stopped the bike dead, we both went down hard. I bent panniers and rack, smashed mirror and my poor bike is looking very sad indeed.

Pick it up assess the damage and take the live wire I have put from the battery and touch it to the started relay and it fires up and I’m off again, at some point on tiny track I do my 10,000th mile and stop for photo and shot of vodka, Glenn puts a dab on his finger and gives it to Monklet, I pat the bike, and Monklet and toast to the next 10,000 miles. Back inside my helmet it’s all quite emotional I really wasn’t expecting it to be. I recall the leaving my house and the first few miles and ‘2 little boys’ comes back in my head, arggghh.

Sometimes the dirt road is so good and the washboards so constant I find I’m up to 50mph and even leaning on the corners at a certain point you get right into the zone still concentrating but totally into the feel of the bike on the road, it’s just as I realize I’m in the zone that I tend to instantly leave it and throttle back as the forks and rear shock bottom out yet again on a misjudged pothole

I’m travelling alone again only 500kms from the capital the roads are improving in fact there is a brand new pristine smooth un driven black straight road just completed there are mounds of earth to stop you driving on it but I can ride over them easy and I ride fast and can actually look around me simultaneously for the first time in a week. But its short lived the road is not complete for very long it turns to sprayed bitumen on compressed gravel I bump over another mound and keep riding, bits fly off my tyres, I continue to bump over large mounds and ride on forbidden road. Ironic really, you can ride absolutely anywhere in this country, no fields, no crops, no fences, you make ya own path, but find a proper road and ya forbidden from using it.

Back to dirt and riding hard drifting on the corners up and down the gears hard on the throttle especially if I pass a bus, entertainment and envy for the cramped tourists and then my right foot hits the ground, my peg has fallen off I stop find it and discover that riding that bitumen road was not so smart the bike is covered in tar, its everywhere over panniers, shocks, forks, engine, number plate and rear lights are completely covered even monk let has splats on him. I’m so annoyed at myself for mistreating something that has treated me so well, the foot peg bolts have sheared off, from bumping over mounds and as I ride with one foot dangling, the other peg comes off, followed by the centre stand. The whole bike is falling apart and I ride into the next town like a jockey my feet perched on the bolt head that hold the sub frame together, it’s a sad site, tar covered bike bits strapped on everywhere. The last bit of road into town is sealed and smooth and for first time I am able to ride and think about something other than the road.

Was it some subconscious deliberate abuse to indicate destination reached, mission accomplished, it’s really depressing, and it shouldn’t be, I should be euphoric. I sat in my trailer all winter planning a bike ride to Mongolia and I’ve bloody done it. Where is the sense of achievement? I think it’s trapped under a layer of tar.

So I spent the next day in the yard of a guest house cleaning and repairing, resting and meditating on bike, location and destination. And with filthy hands and shining wheels I realized all I needed was time off of the road, time to myself, time to take it all in, I was ok before but now I’m better.

When a draining boot on the mirror drips on his head Monklet smiles

When I’m inside a yurt and he’s out in the hail Monklet smiles

When he raps his tail round the heated handlebar grips, he smiles

When he has 10,000th mile vodka he smiles

And when I wipe tar off him with a petrol rag he keeps on smiling

Clean up and carry on, with a smile on our faces

Love Flid