Mexicans wave

‘They kill babies and stuff them full of drugs to get them across the border’ (the drugs - not the babies) That was the climax of the horror stories I've been told with utter sincerity over for the past 4 months whenever I mentioned the trip. Recited by the inhabitants of the land of the brave about the dangers that lay beyond their southern border. Take guns, travel in a posse ‘I knew of 60 camper vans who travelled together to avoid trouble’ warned one of the many people who was ‘informed’ but like every informer, had never actually been there, seen it or done it. Well I'm afraid now; I really hope I don’t get stuck behind 60 camper vans all with their sewage tanks close to overflowing from the fear of the Mexican bandito.
Strangely the closer we got to the boarder the more feasible the warnings became. ‘Be careful’ the Californians said. And I am I've put Monklet on night guard duty and the bike has been just fine.
3 weeks it’s been 3 weeks since I left the UK and it’s been nonstop. Ten days in Denver, being host, guest, mechanic, cook, and of course notching up a few more points on my dwindling score for the father of the year award. Mainly scored with the good old Crunchie bar bonus gift.
Four days before departure it snowed,

we have a mountain range to cross, but you have to live by the rules of the weather, so we drink whiskey around the log burner, make Sheppard’s pie and appreciate the winter experience all the more, knowing that is all we will get.
It was manic and ended in a massive rush of hyper chaos packing, washing, dressing and last minute book promotional antics. I just want to catch my breath; I just want to slow the pace. I just want to stop before I start and appreciate the first step; not run into an overlap of events. After the goodbye photos which happily produced the best one ever of me and Madalynn.

The others went to get fuel and I got a moment to try and muster up some tranquillity. I stood by my bike; I slowly breathed out and stretched out my arms in front of me. Looked at the sky line of Denver 30 miles away and into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains we were about to wallow through, it was something like manic meditation. I looked at the bike laden with last minute maybes and cold and wet weather clothing bungeed on without organization or aesthetics, like another box of bulbuls had just been discovered when the Christmas tree had already been decorated.

If there is anything more sexy than a used bike with a new tyre chain and sprocket then it’s probably female, but in the absents of such feminine beauty I will appreciate this oiled up and accessible beast in fresh new tight fitting rubber.

I looked at Monklet in position behind the bark bashers. My left-hand-man. ‘Come on then let’s go see what out luck is like.’ And with that I threw my leg over (the bike, not Monklet) wedged myself between the tank bag and rear luggage, heaved the bike upright, kicked up the side stand, pressed the starter and began the next trip. I met Jonathan coming the other way.
‘Where’s Andy? He asks
‘He went to get fuel with you’
‘Oh I did see another bike but I thought they had a passenger’
‘No, that was Andy and his luggage’
We were 2 miles from the start point and we had already managed to lose each other. And I though solo travel was difficult. This formation of 3 was going to require some communication skills and some patients, neither of which I would list as strong points in my character.
We are all riding KLR 650’s, Jon feeling a little left out because as he said, he didn’t get the memo that said he should have got a green one. So me and Andy have matching bikes, we were given handmade bracelets for luck and safety; we have got matching yellow travel towels. And our fingerless gloves that to the untrained eye would look identical. We are not trying to be the his and his uniform biker who are the butt of so many jokes but unintentionally we seem have more than our destination in common.

So spending the first night in a nudist hot springs was not the place to be mincing around with matching towels and jewellery, luckily Jagermister and darkness take away any form of self-consciousness and indulge we did. (In the hot springs that is, not the butt jokes). Can I feel myself relaxing? Almost, enough to realise I left the Sheppard’s pie in the fridge. Dam it; send text ‘Can you freeze it for me? I’ll be back next year.
‘I worked at a ski resort’ says a girl that I always meet here, not specifically her, she’s from Boulder and has no real grasp on reality, or is that just people from Boulder? ‘I know what Sheppard’s pie is, we used to cook it on Australia day, we got a lot of people from Australia and New Zealand.’
‘Really? Cool, actually I'm from the other end of the planet’
‘.....’
‘The northern end?’
‘Oh’
‘You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?’
‘Not really...I like your accent’

I'm not complacent, I'm just lucky and fully appreciative that I have seen this scenery so many times, the snow capped beauty of the Rocky Mountains, the golden colours of the autumn aspen, the vast and timeless formations of Utah’s terrain. I don’t see it as revisited just re-experienced and the only thing that the experience tells me is that it can’t be captured on camera, I know what it’s like, I know it’s beyond description and I know that it blows me away every time . I also know that any time I have tried to capture it and it slideshows across a screen saver, it will not stop me in my tracks, in respect, in awe and disbelief. Only being here will do that and it does constantly. Stopping in my tracks, stopping on the tracks, because this time we are travelling with large capacity luggage not large capacity engines and the best way to utilize the freedom of our dual sport bikes is to get off the road and onto the dirt trails that take us right out of the loop.

All this vibration of the washboard roads takes its toll and my extended windshield has fractured.
‘Where’s the crack?’ says Andy as he looks over the bike, ‘stuffed inside a dead baby’ is something I would never say...
Hang on a minute, don’t dead babies need passports? What a truly preposterous threat, where did these gullible idiots hear this scare mongering and why did they believe it? 3 months on the road they said they were, not a bug splat on their pristine Goldwing and even if they were telling the truth about the length of journey they were none the wiser for it. Mind expansion was clearly not a by-product of the trip they were on. Not having a huge experience in international drug smuggling I can’t help but think crossing any boarder with drugs is infinity easier than crossing same said boarder with dead infants. But then maybe the jails are full of drug smugglers who thought the same.
Our multi cylinder calculations constantly came up wrong and our days never ended in our estimated destination. They did however end in beautiful solitude where camp fires can be lit,

stars are too numerous to be counted and the view from the tent could be lethal if I were to sleep walk or indeed stumble on a midnight calling.

Utah could be called the tinnitus awareness state. We so rarely hear silence in our lives that when it does surround you it’s a shock to hear what is going on inside your head. In the desert, apparently you can’t remember your name, also you can’t hear a pin drop, not because of the noise, but because of the sand. Still I don’t have any pins to drop, but I did lose another year though and celebrated a birthday in a party of three.

No reception on my phone but at 9am it kicked off anyway with a reminder that said ‘ME ME ME ME ME’ I don’t remember programming that in but it’s the closest I got to a greeting card. Oh dear, deserts are renowned for their dryness and so is Utah, alcohol is not freely available here. Emergency hip flask and a rung out bottle of jager is the extent of the liquid celebrations.
Last year I dyed my hair red for my Axl Rose consume party, this year I'm red from the desert sand, stained from axel grease; I'm not smelling of roses.

Like the M25 I can’t avoid Vegas, wherever I go I seem to have to pass through the man made misery, selling high hopes with high wattage, taking everything and giving nothing, promoting the biggest, quantity over quality. The problem with big and no substance is that it leaves a vacuum and that is where the majority are sucked in. Manufactured for greed by greed. ‘Hot babes want to meet you’ say the signs on the trucks cruising the strip, no they fuckin don’t. Sluts and slots, indulgence and ignorance. Shattered dreams pound the pavement, hi-rise eye candy, unreachable and unavailable, a black pyramid of excess, the Egypt of negativity, a fake Eiffel tower and a volcano of butane. We sit in a bar of borrowed identity, a fake camp fire with tinted glass and blue light, over upholstered seats and over inflated drink prices for the privilege. You can smoke here, employ and fuck prostitutes but it’s against the rules to wear ‘head gear’ remove your bandanna it may offend. But it’s ok to take your whiskey to the breakfast bar at 3am and wear your do-rag there whilst eating your 8 egg omelette and reading the body language of the employed company on the other tables, ‘buy me 8 egg omelette -I love you long time.’ Yeah, they are known for their binding qualities.

3 hours ride from the stunning natural beauty of Zion

is the ugliness of Vegas, the epitome of all that is capitalist. The depravity of humanity, sex and money, alcohol and excess. I like all of those things, but on my terms, I won’t buy into this, I never do. I do my laundry in the sink it’s the height or my rebellion.

And after 3 hours sleep the dawn has me posing with tripod to capture last night’s dregs mixing with the new day’s fresh hope.

Hauling my gear through the casino to the bikes parked in a distant multi-storey, I encounter the zombies pouring their coins into noisy greedy thankless machines. The breed has evolved into something I don’t care to recognise. Made by a city, made by man, made by unhealthy and un-realistic desires. I don’t mind freaks and weirdoes, in fact I quite like them, it’s why I go to festivals, but this is a mutated and deranged form that is shocking and worrying; uncomfortable and out of place beyond the welcoming doors of the casinos and the advantage taking counters of the pawn shops. There is no end but the bus terminal benches and cardboard shelters for these luckless addicts of the empty promise, teasing machines, but it’s ok, ‘hot babes want to meet them too’ or at least they will if their reels a line, all on board for a row of cherries.


Off into the desert with dropping altitude and gaining temperature, altitude has been a very significant part of the trip. My new watch displays it with varying degrees of accuracy, and my dodgy carb deals with it with varying performance. I announce every drop and gain whenever helmets are removed. Like a stock market update the rises and falls are duly recorded and relayed. Jon was getting altitude sickness – he was sick and tired of me spouting 4 figure numbers, ‘Really? I find it quite interesting’ I guess he doesn’t have a head for heights.

Unfortunately my temperature gauge encompassed on my compass watch does not display such dramatic rises and falls due to it being on my wrist and my body temperature only changes with extreme exertion and twisting a throttle doesn’t really fall into that category. But it was hotter, I was fidgeting more and more on my seat, and the arid scenery was no distraction a few Joshua trees here and there, even the sat nav is passive as the streets have no name. Only the odd trailer and dilapidated home which sparks the eternal question ‘what do people do out here?’ Sweat, I think is the answer. Broken glass on the side of the road magnifies the sun into my dried and tired eyes, like I don’t have enough reasons to close them.

The final sprint onto crowded highways into San Diego, concrete, commerce and the spall of urban occupancy, how many motor home dealerships do you need. How many sales can they make? There is always an unanswered question in my head.
I sleep on my friends balcony, it’s almost become a tradition, I have that illusive and delicious sleep that I enjoy so rarely, generated from time on the road, born from sleep deprived Vegas, created by desert dehydration, being in the safety of the balcony but mainly I think the sleep formula came from my ‘Cosmic Down- Kelty sleeping bag, they gave it to me. Yes this trip I have sponsorship. Thank you Kelty, thanks you for my lovely warm inviting sleeping bag, I just bet hot babes want to get into it...well cold ones actually, so they can become hot.
Lots of fish to eat and lots of things to cross off the list. Down on the beach are hot babes but they don’t want to meet me. When I was living in a van here a quarter of a century ago they weren’t even born, sigh, how did that happen?
A sad goodbye, not to youth but to a friend from it, and then there are two, it’s time to go to Mexico, nothing more to do.
20 months since the first mention of the idea and now it’s time to cross the border with butterflies, not form the fear stories but the inevitable boarder butterflies, a year of sporadic dedication to learning Spanish. I do question the priority of what Rosetta stone has taught me; I can name hair colour and clothing but still can’t ask for a room or the bill. The colour of the dog presents no problem.

The Mexican border, the 4 lanes of the highway south become less and less crowded the signs say 2 things ‘guns are illegal in Mexico’ and ‘1 more exit before international boarder’
Oooo this is exciting. And then without so much as a stop sign we cross an invisible line, the sat nav freaks out and leaves it’s accuracy north of the boarder, the air is filled with the smell of the street vendors, tacos, meat and fish cooking over coals and wooden embers, there are stalls selling all things Mexican, (sombreros and ponchos- not dead babies full of drugs) I’ve never crossed such an significant boarder without so much as a uniform official looking on. Nada, nothing at all. For a country that’s world renowned for being so difficult to enter its remarkable easy to leave. No goodbye, no ‘submit your visa’, no ‘have a nice day’. I disappeared like the truth in a Fox news report.

I only stopped out of choice because I saw a sign that said auto insurance. We are not ripped off; it's professional, efficient, honest, and helpful.
‘Do you speak Spanish? You don’t?’
Yes ‘el perro es blanko’
‘What dog, where? I can’t see a white dog’ he might have replied. Dam my Rosetta stone and it inappropriate phrases, I'm more than capable of making up my own in-approapate phrases. (As regular readers are well aware)

Through choice we get ourselves processed, immigration, vehicle registration, and deposits etc. At first together, but then with bikes out of site and unattended it seems to make sense to take advantage of being two and so one stands guard whilst the other bounces from office to counter like a ball baring in a pinball machine, slowly getting the appropriate stamps and photocopies and then whilst Andy gets processed I irresponsible go to the taco stall and get an everything taco. I’m shouted at by Mr. Uniform for leaving the compound or something I didn’t understand, cus it had nothing to do with the colour of the dogs.

And that’s it, we are officially in Mexico, no drug cartels having shoot outs, no severed heads on fence posts, or blood stained streets, no stand and deliver road side robberies, just friendly faces and smiles, thumbs up out the windows of beetles. It’s hard to dispel 25 years of American film making that always portrays Mexico as the lawless and dangerous place where all things criminal occur. When they aren’t picking on Mexico it’s the bikers who are bad, but we all know that’s a myth, right?
The highway runs parallel to the boarder and the fences that separate the 2 countries are formidable and impenetrable, that is unless you’ve been to Glastonbury lately, in which case I think America could learn a few security lessons from Michael Eavis.
The fear has not entirely left me. When the cool Pacific air gives me a chill I find some waste ground to stop on to put in my liner rather than a lay-by where a local may be laying in wait with an ‘Hola, bienvenido’
But then we discover that America is not so far behind us as we pull into a shopping area with a Wall-mart, an American DIY stores and restaurants. The only evidenced that we are in Mexico is that the banks have different names.

Predictably it only takes 24 hours before we find out place in the precession, numerous long distance cyclists and the inevitable aluminium boxes of the overland motorcyclist.
A German couple with their flags flying from their bikes. I don’t feel the need to display my patriotism so blatantly but I do lick my finger and wipe the mud from my union jack sticker on my mud guard.

This is only Baja California its Mexico’s Goa a gentle transition into the real country. My guard is relaxed but never off.
Loud speakers are blaring through the streets of the dusty town and as Andy goes into a shop to get water I see the source of the noise. A car promoting a circus ‘attention, el circus es in de town, como and buy de ticket, see de amazing circuso’ or something like that,
The car is proceeded by a pickup truck full of scantily clad waving babes ‘who might want to meet you’
And then a big tuck with open sides and albino tigers inside and macho guys standing on the roof
Finally a ticket sales car follows up the rear and a police car finished the parade. Andy comes out
‘Ya not gonna believe what you just missed’
Wot? Really? No way!’
‘Come on, let’s cross the road I just bet they’ll be back’ ‘
We did and they were, more smiling and waving and perhaps just a little perving.
We are about to leave when a man pulls up to me in his jeep,
‘Hola senor, ow are you, dis es my son’
Oh know he’s not stuffed full of drugs is he? No he isn’t, he has a present for me, ‘a sombrero amigo for you, for luck for your journey, it is a gift from me, for you, I give you a gift’
‘Machos gracias’
How cool, then he shows me a number plate, it has a web site on it, as well as half the bumper of the truck it was attached to. For you my friend a gift, for luck, for your journey, I give to you’
What? Do I look like a fuckin scrap metal collector?
‘Mucho gracias’
Here Andy, have this piece of truck, I give to you for luck, for your tip, for you my friend, I give to you, you carry the bloody thing, I don’t want it, I don’t need it, I have a lucky sombrero.

And then we pass the parade on our bikes wave at the girls again I try to video the tigers on my camera as I pass, and completely run out of hands to pull in my clutch and stop at the red light, shit, this is how accidents happen, thankfully the lucky sombrero provides balance and I snatch the clutch with a finger that isn’t holding the camera and knock it into natural, wave at the girls again and off to the next experience.
The road moves inland, all my sat nav tells me is direction and speed. Perfect. I could feel myself loosing 17 years of instinctive truck driving navigational skills to this little know it all box, like the know it all box that took away my ability to memorize phone numbers and made me contactable just about everywhere, but not where we are going. No more cafes no more bars on my phone. Into the desert, tall cactus are about as Mexican as deck chairs are on a British beach, so I'm not sure why it is such a thrill to see them, but it is, they are certainly more photogenic that the stripy hired seats of the seaside resort.

They stick out of rock in there prickly majestic way and become stalagmites of awe as the light changes around them.

It doesn’t seem real, like a western movie set as we pitch out tents under stars dwarfed by the 30 foot succulents.

3 weeks 3 nonstop weeks. Dead babies full of drugs? Not on my watch.

The moan of the homeless

The moan of the homeless, living on the road is envious living on the streets is not.

Just because there is no pay cheque doesn’t mean it’s not productive, just because there’s no boss doesn’t mean it’s not work, just because its fun doesn’t mean it’s easy. Enforced homelessness, it’s a constant battle to find comfort and privacy whilst living with consideration and politeness. Ok I'm not on the streets but soon hopefully I’ll be on the road. Not carrying my possessions in a trolley, but having them stored in various boxes in various sheds and garages, knowing where to find most stuff and being absolutely clueless as to where it might be if it isn’t where I thought it was. Sometimes you just want to close your door behind you and sit in a space that you have all to yourself. Go to a garage where my tools are or to a bathroom where my toothbrush is. That last happened in a hotel room in Kathmandu (the toothbrush not the tools) and then there was no electricity to see the toothbrush or water to brush my teeth. Then there was a tent in the Rockies (for having a door to shut behind me, not a bathroom).

Oh it all sounds so glamorous and I suppose it is but between the glamour is trying to make yourself invisible when you just feel like the hospitality you accept gratefully makes you conscious that your presents is all a bit invasive.
And anyway it’s not all beaches and mountains, bike rides and blogs. If you write about the fun its sounds like bragging if you write about the hardships it sounds like ungratefulness and if you don't write at all the blog shrivels and dies. The summer consisted of trying to get someone to publish the story about the last trip, buying 2 bikes for the next one and selling a third as a non starter, then preparing them both for another overland journey. I know from experience what’s necessary and what’s not, and then the frustration that you have most of that already but it’s in another country. And so are the tools to alter and fit them with. There is a lot to be said for never stopping, kit out the bike and keep on riding, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

When ya on the road you survive, you improvise, you utilize and use ingenuity, off the road you try to remember where and when you last had the thing you need. Another bike in another country another starting point and another unknown stopping point. Just leave Denver and head south. And back? I'm not thinking about it. You can either torture yourself with a deadline, a ferry or flight, a fixed date and destination an unimaginable distance away; or ride with a vague sense of direction but untimely no intension other than to stop when its time. Both have their advantages and hardships.
The same can be said for company, ride alone and take all you can carry, borrow nothing from no one and have no one to share your independent and solitary experiences with, but experience what only the solo traveller can. Native life, wild life and inner reflection aren’t attracted to conversation but come because there isn’t one.
But share the load, share the road, halve the responsibility and diminish the fear, laugh out loud in your crowd and your loneliness, nervous natives and nature will all be gone. The pros and cons of companionship. I've travelled with myself long enough to know what I'm like, to know what I like. Usually the opposite of what I have.
Preparation has been a pastime, an obsession but with the ease of familiarity and comfort of experience, combined with money saving minimalism, knowing that every penny saved on flashy equipment is an extension to the trip. It also means a less desirable bike in the eyes of the opportunity taking and trip ending thief.
As always the neighbouring countries citizens have given there grim warnings of crossing the border, drug cartels and gangs, shootings, muggings and other horror stories which no one has actually witnessed firsthand, ‘take a gun’ I'm warned, ‘actually take two’ I don't think so. I’ll take it all with a pinch of salt, I’ll take wide eyes, alertness and as fewer chances as possible, but I will not be carrying a piece because I'm not in a movie, I'm not scared and I would probably just crack myself up at how ridicules I looked if I ever was in a situation where I actually had to point it at someone. May be I should hold it sideways and say ‘motherfucker’ a lot that always looks pretty cool in the movies.
‘Take a gun’ they say, for fucks sake, Americans always want to take their guns, like a 4 year old with a teddy bear they just feel safer with them, I think I’ll just take Monklet, what could possibly go wrong?
I always find guide books far more informative and easier to relate to after I've been to the place they write of. Nothing worse that have preconceived ideas and high expectations only to find that site is closed, covered in scaffolding, off season, obscured by clouds or tourists. Actually there is something worse and that's not even knowing the site was there in the first place and missing it, so if I just check my guide book every night to see what’s in tomorrow’s vicinity I can be pleasantly surprised and get satisfaction without the anticipation.
Maybe it’s because it’s still 4 weeks away, maybe because I'm so familiar with what will be the first few days riding , maybe its because I'm going with a friend, maybe it’s my complete lack of research, but hopefully it’s because after Asia alone, it can’t be any scarier than I have already witnessed. And that's why my nails are not bitten and my nerves are not threaded. I'm just waiting. Waiting for the thrill of the journey and not concerned about the pot holes pit falls and all the other things I can’t change. That’s why I've had noting much to say. Ultimately it’s just waiting for the departure date, prepared to a degree, researched to a point, not complacent but on top of things, pacing methodically through a list of trivial ‘to do’s’.
There is one thing, I have half my bike this side of the Atlantic, I bought back the head and cams, cylinder and piston, valves and springs and then another complete head too.

Not entirely satisfied with the suitability of my miss-matched head components and not convinced my cylinder was round inside there may be no perfect circle but there is defiantly imperfect ones.

So for peace of mind and in the name of oil conservation I am having them checked out here so I can be sure the top end is tiptop and I can divert my attention to the lumpy bottom on my return. Nothing like having an airline imposed weight limit and a bunch of road survival equipment to take with you and just when you have juggled your weight limit to the max you have the entire top end of an engine to take with you too.
Road trips shouldn’t start with a flight, I have an over active fly-ride problem and I'm still over weight. Are they really going to accept my aluminium panniers, one as check in one as hand luggage, and if they do will the carrousel rip my Mongolian and Korean stickers. And can’t I find something more important to worry about, bandito's and drug barons, corruption and carless drivers, paperwork and police, illness, immunization and imminent death, kidnapping and mugging, heat and humidity, breakdowns, bribes and boarder controls. No I think my luggage is plenty for now.

Clearly the work of a demented creature

Savaged by werewolves, it was almost defiantly attacked by the sharp claws of a demented animal.

My daughter’s suggestion as I helped her take out the cam shafts. Another possibility was that too much time and money was spent on the bike and a neglected girlfriend took a knife to her competition; venom born from the nails, painted but ignored, the sharp claws of a demented animal.

But delving deep into the smoking engine, the casings split and I discovered the truth. Sand had been poured in, to contaminate the life blood and destroy every bearing, moving part and smooth surface. The accurately machined tolerances have not run out from the sands of time but tolerance ran out and the sand of spite was to blame. What can be done? As I scraped the oil soaked grit from the sump I realized this was an inside job.

This loved, nurtured and accessorized bike was to be reprocessed, an occurrence the desperate owner had considered to be a hostile takeover and if he couldn’t ride her no one would. So from bailiff to auction to dealer to me I have become the half aware victim of blatant sabotage due understandable circumstance. I still prefer that werewolf theory though, it has more bite. Although reposition has more creditability in the current credit crunch climate.
This is not the first but defiantly the biggest step in preparation of the next trip. To find a bike to take me to South America. Eyes wide open but not in x-ray mode, I knew I was buying something with a troubled history and the negotiated price reflected this but it stopped being a bargain when the awful truth of revenge was revealed. I knew it came with baggage that's why I bought it; panniers are expensive to buy on their own.

So now it’s time to establish new connections, discover used parts, and rely on past experience to get my motor running. It remains a bike of accessories and character, embellished with excess and scarification.

The Christmas tree is dead but the presents remain.

Freak Street, Kathamndu, Nepal

Freak Street, I'm not sure what came first the name or the freaks. Actually it was the freaks back in the ‘70’s but now the name alone attracts the continuing hoards of dread locks to the dead end. Do the residents make the street this way or does the street shape the residents?
Lost souls stay here too long, but its undecided exactly how long too long is. (I think it’s about 20 minutes) The hours pass slowly but the years slip by too fast. I've been here too long and only a week has passed. Rooms become vacant, occupied and vacant again. Residents become vacant and stay vacant. It’s an unhealthy environment; this place will shorten your life expectancy whilst simultaneously making it seem longer. It’s a waste of Nepal, wasters of Kathmandu. You can’t even see the Himalaya range through the haze of pollution, hash smoke, general apathy and confusion. It’s an intriguingly hopeless place. Everything is available on the street except, ambition, enthusiasm, improvement and responsibility.
The street is narrow; the minds despite chemical enhancement are not much wider. The buildings are tall; if you have a window at all, it’s not a view you see but a reflection. Pail faces peer out of dark rooms, it’s as close as they come to seeing the light.

There is no fresh air for a fresh conversation. No fresh faces, just dried lips and glazed eyes. And if something exciting does happen here, it’s probably very wrong.
The dogs bark all through the night and sleep in the road all day, mopeds hoot their piecing approach and no one takes any notice. It’s never quiet, only less noisy, the muffled mutterings of stoners on the stairs is audible when metal shutters have rattled down, with slamming doors the dog chores starts its night time serenade, until the street sellers join them for the last chores. Then shutters go up again for another day of horns and pipes of exhaust without silencers, with paralytic converters that block echoes inside the corridor.
The restaurants sell their city food, grown and imported from the outskirts of the city where the pollution is cleaner. The dealers push, the receivers loiter, the beggars cling and plead ‘need phone credit.’ The residents drag there listless bodies from roof top restaurant to hippy cloths shop to tattooist to the dodgy DVD seller. The shops too have no imagination; they sell hand crafts from a 20 year old worthless stock which has no use or desire. Grotesque masks, chipped and dusty, faded and cracked. The purpose of which I'm unsure of; to cover a wall or a face, they bare a strong resemblance to both.

A crumbling post of urine stench and faded graffiti supports a street light that doesn’t shine, neither does the shoe repair man who sits underneath it, he had to diversify from shining, to repairs of shabby sandals, which have suffered from a lifetime of lifeless shuffling.
Why am I here? Sometimes I think to myself, then I stop. Well its cheep. I'm sitting out my last few days awaiting the arrival of my departure date.
The further east I have come the worst this country has become. The memories of the clean simplistic beauty that were farming communities and the mountain awe are lost in this capital of despair. A nation of frustration, I can handle it, but the locals have had enough. It’s an embarrassing and humiliating first impression of Nepal for the majority; their plane lands in Kathmandu they don't arrive overland bad taste is the first taste. The electricity is on for 10-14 hours a day, usually during the low demand daylight hours. The water supply is intermittent. The petrol is limited and 5 hour queues for a 15 litre ration are the norm. The petrol stations are guarded by the army who have priority over the delegation so as to maintain the ability to immobilize when the inevitable rebellion starts. The roads are less crowded due to the shortages but still congested, inadequate and in a state of disrepair. Everything is. The busses are just tin on worn rubber. The river banks are rubbish dumps and the water runs black and bubbles with toxication. Everywhere is evidence that things were once better, but improvements have long been left to decay.
Freak Street has passed its sell by date and everything here is rotten. I think my room faces west; it’s hard to say, the sun provides light but not direction. Sometimes you notice the temperature but most of the time not. The buildings provide shadows but not security. When the street clogs with stupidity, the horns honk with impatience but not solution. Screaming at a wall, stamping on the ground, futile reactions change nothing. The blockage seeps with crusty careless contortionists and eventually everyone can go with the flow again. A traffic jam on Freak Street is like pressing pause on a loop tape. Freak Street exists because people come. People stay and people don't go. It’s always high season on Freak Street. I never want to come back here, but there lies the assumption that I can leave.
My breakfast repeats every morning, as does the scene through the stained glass restaurant window. When the water runs I fill my empty bottles for the flush that won’t refill. When the lights flicker I charge a battery. When the mood takes me I walk outside into the deranged bustle. Why am I here? So I can appreciate being anywhere else.
The taxis want my business but they have no fuel and I have nowhere to go. ‘You want to go somewhere?’
‘Yes’
‘So do me’
Dealers stand in the shadows and pace at my side
‘Want something?’
‘No’ well yes, obviously I want something, can you be more specific? Can you get my book published?
‘Good price for you, hash? Smoke something? Brown? Where from? I can get for you, hello? Where you go?’
‘For a walk’ I don't know, back to my room I suppose. At this phase of my life my addictions are legal, whiskey and noodle soup eliminate the need for a dealer, and I alternate my indulgencies daily, never mix ya drugs. ‘You want soup? I have long noodles, thick beef, very spicy. Whiskey? I have good bottle, easy to get cellophane off cap, good thread. Yes? You want? I get for you.’
When the light changes to low I go out to the Stupa in the square, where the obedient pay their entrance fee and the rest just walk past the hut, occupied by the bemused ticket seller who can’t believe the amount of people who pay money because a sign says to.

I sit with my zoom lens and photograph the comings and goings.
A few steps out of Freak Street and there is life and a reason to live it. It’s a market, it’s a meeting place, it’s a taxi stand, and it’s a thoroughfare; it’s a site to see. It’s alive and I sit on the filthy step and the chai man brings me the hot milky sweetness that I will miss the most. There’s inspiration beyond Freak Street. There is beauty and conversation. There’s architecture and a history from beyond 1970.

Why don't I leave? Because as long as I can get to the stupa I know I can, when I'm back I don't bother, when I do, I will wonder why I didn’t before and when I have... the parts I recall will be greater that the hole I was in.
Freak Street has come down from its trip and I've just finished mine.

The North Face at my feet

Sometimes the shape goes peared. It was a bit like a plan, tentatively researched, defiantly discussed, practically decided. I think it’s the reason I left the beach, but my beach mind has few recollections, I just remember it took two attempts to abscond.
I even bought some hiking socks, North Face they said on them, as fake as a dolphins smile, they would write North Face on a banana it they thought it would double the value. The preparation continued with the purchase of 8 cinnamon and raisin energy bars. I was ready for a high altitude encounter with Himalayan hospitality.
Of course we are going to trek; this is where the term ‘trek’ was born. Another much associated phrase with this mountain range was ‘heroic failure’. George Mallory’s failed expeditions in the 1920’s eventually resulting in his death on his third Everest summit attempt. Its unknown as to whether his demise was on the accent or decent. In 1953 Sir Edmond Hillary became the first man to summit and he did it on the day of the Queen’s coronation; so it would have been a neat bundle of coincidence if I could make it to Annapurna Base Camp for her grandson’s wedding day, not as an act of patriotic common mounting you understand, just to avoid the bloody thing.
Compared to some expeditions, this may be snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef but its still participating in what’s on offer. Be it under the sea or atop a mountain.
One of our party had a runny tummy, if there is one travel trauma I can emphasise with it’s that one. No worries, we’ll wait it out. But it ran on and took with it all her energy. If you have to be ill this is the place to be. Good food of every description, clean peaceful guesthouse, a lake and mountain views. I know how it feels to have no energy; Nepal knows how it feels to have no energy. Electricity cuts are a daily occurrence and last so long it’s remarked upon when there is power not when there isn’t.
After several days of listless low pressure whether and a self inflicted high pressure to get better. Both had a turning point. The muggy humidity bought a storm that flashed and cracked and hammered down olive size hail stones. If I had had a G&T in hand and a helmet on head I would have stepped out and caught a heaven sent ice cube in my cocktail glass. Instead we stayed in the shelter of a local restaurant and watched in silent respect at the power of the whether, because talking over it was impossibility. The hotel attached restaurants did well that night.
The next morning bought a clear sky and the snow capped 6000m peaks were beckoning. Well they were to me. My friends’ decided they couldn’t do it. I hadn’t seen it coming; I hadn’t heard it coming, the dilemma must have been debated in Deutsch. I was quite happy to wait. So simultaneously shocked and disappointed I found myself once again in solo traveller mode. An easy but still quite sad and mainly unexpected transition. I got my trekking permits and headed out into thin air.
Some people take porters to carry their luggage, helping the local economy it their excuse for their laziness. Some carry their own packs and hire a guide. Some travel independently in groups. Some carry ski poles because they want to look like utter twats; well they look like ski poles to me, maybe they’re just dip sticks. It’s not advisable to trek alone but it’s not really alone. A 10 day trek to the Annapurna Base Camp is well trodden, even at this end of a quiet season time of low traffic trek, there’s not much solitude.
It’s easy to get in trouble though, I realized turning round on a bridge over a river to view the mountains and losing my balance.

But it’s easy to be ok too. Theft and mugging is a slight threat but isn’t it everywhere? Landslides and falls are a rick too but as my friend said the other day when she was contemplating pulling my ponytail to wake me up. ‘No risk, no excitement’
I was looking forward to some extreme exercise in contrast to my beach and hammock malaise.
You jump in at the steep end. Climbing out of the taxi and straight up stone steps from the valley floor. I soon adjusted to the temperature of sweat and exertion. That kind of feel good gym type pain. And with a funeral march type pause in my step I left the valley. Every time I strayed from the right track a local was in the vicinity to shout and point.
The first mountain village was a tourist trap where the food is still pizza and apple pie and the trekkers sit gasping for breath or at scenery and speculate as to whether they have bitten off more than they can chew. It’s the first proper view of all that’s to come and I take off my pack and take it all in.

A tattooed mountain lad approaches me and starts the obligatory conversation; I'm tired of it, so I can’t imagine how the instigator feels. ‘Where from? Where to? How long?’ The small talk before the offer, ‘want marijuana?’
‘No thank you kind sir, I have come for a natural mountain high’ and anyway the only thing getting stoned ever made easier for me was... sorry forgot where I was going with that one.
Later an old man sitting in the shade of his hovel gave me the ‘Where from?’ And followed it with an unexpected, ‘What city?’ Ooo I thought, are you going to tell tales of enlistment into Ghurkha regiments and displays at military tattoos held in reverence of my home town audience? No it was just a twist on the same prefix before he offered me hashish. Shit, the stuff grows wild anyway, its more common that stinging nettles and if the strength of the sting in the Nepalese nettles is anything to go by the weed is gonna... well you know... like, totally get me stoned or something.
I was pleased with my ability to stay on the path, get up the hill and carry my gear. All’s well, I carry on. When I trek I like to do it alone even if I'm not. Like fishing, it may not be done absolute isolation but you are left in your own space with your own thoughts. I suppose motorcycling has that aspect to it too, strange how my favourite pastimes all involve an element of solitude. Still if you’re not familiar and comfortable with your own company how can you know what aspects of it are worth sharing?
Step by step I forge ahead. The annoyance of the noisy group becomes even less tolerable, once you’re into your personal mountain climbing space. I go to a tiny unattended food shack to order my noodles. A big healthy plate of stir fried vegetables and greasy carbohydrates. Yum. Now will I stop before my designated nights rest or beyond it?
Another half predicable conversation ‘First time Nepal?’
‘No second’
‘Yes, looks like it’ the man said with a sort of rhetorical wisdom.
The one down side to hiking alone is when you’re not hiking, typically the day ends early. 7 hours of up or down action is enough. (And the same rules apply to hiking) That's when the boredom can set in. My own company may be enchanting but you can have too much of a good thing. There was no way I was taking unnecessary weight such as a book, I did, at the last minute remind myself that an iPod is only the size of a cassette and 7000 songs were never so easy to carry, then discovered I had left it on last time I used it, so that too was staying with the majority of my luggage at the Pokhara guesthouse.
I reached the village where the obedient majority spend their first night; it was predicable busy, dip sticks everywhere. Yuk. But then I never gave ‘em a chance, I wasn’t looking for company, that's not why I go up mountains. I carried on. Anyway it was still early. And that, right there, was the massive mistake. That and probably the speed in which I got there. Not exertion beyond my capabilities but perhaps a little to rigorous for a body of recent leisure. And the third thing I have come to reluctantly admit is, if I’d have taken dip sticks, maybe, just maybe my knee would not have exploded. The ladder wound; it’s been many years now but it’s been longer since I did a serious hike. The 20 foot fall from a ladder, landing on a pea shingle drive way, on my knees! I've never been the same since; but I got better. Barley a twinge these days.
It took a long half hour to find a quiet room for the night.
A half hour that could have implications for a long time to come.
‘How much?’
‘100’ Humm 89p, under the circumstances I don’t think I will haggle.
I took an ibuprofen, a big pink one for special occasions. Finish trekking at 3pm, eat my curry at 5pm and stand around looking at the imposing mountains of ungaugeable perspective as it gets colder and darker, until 7pm and then bed. I felt it throb and grind all night as I fidgeted in my rented down sleeping bag of questionable cleanliness.

‘The only thing you will find at the top of a mountain is what you took with you’ is a quote I read in some spiritual enlightenment magazine once, or maybe it was the inside of a portaloo door at Glastonbury, I forget. But it wasn’t true, I left with phone reception and fitness and now I have neither.
I was up where I belonged, close to the unfeasible large peeks. It’s all the incentive I needed to carry on into the wondrous vastness of the world’s highest mountain range. But incentive was not an ingredient that was lacking.

By 5am 10 hours sleep was enough, I had a whores wash* under the cold shower, (*whores wash - pits, tits and private bits) as the sun came up I took photos of pink mountains and took more pink pills.

Usually in such an environment I'm quite content with the sounds that surround me, the distant crashing water over rocks in the river bed. The ritual of the dawn sweeping of the dried hardened muddy yards and the bird song. I rarely miss my iPod in such situations. But last night’s discomfort was all the more painful due to an annoying song in my head. ‘He’s on the ball, he’s on the ball’ where did that come from? Some connection to football injuries? No, in the morning song, I realized one irritating spices sings the first 4 notes of that song over and over the only 4 notes I know the words to, if only the dawn chorus had a verse it wouldn't be so repetitive.
Ten minutes into the next day’s trekking and despite being bound in tubigrip and knew that it was over. I came to the fork for the alternative route back. With utter disappointment, frustration but mainly pain I took the low road. A decent of uneven stone steps to a river at the bottom of a steep valley. Every pace was a 2 step process both feet on every step before I went to the next one.

The only consolation was that I was heading back. But the regret was as big as any mountain that eluded me. There are fatties and oldies doing this and I bloody cant.
I met an Englishman with a relatively cool stick, more like a staff; who told me he hurt his knee yesterday too but had taken some codeine and was carrying on. I wasn’t about to play knee hurty one-upmanship but I'm dam sure he didn’t hurt his the way I hurt mine. He offered me some codeine, well it makes a change from marijuana, but in a non masochistic way I would rather feel the pain and not fuck my knee up entirely.
I left town wondering how long my cameras’ battery would last and retuned running out of things to photograph.

A small plus to doing the alternative route back is no one was on it. Not even me. I was shouted at, in a nice way, from a stone built house on top of a terrace of paddy fields. ‘Naya Pul?’
‘Yes Naya Pul’ they gestured I turn around. I did, and then they shouted again, well what then? An old man nimbly scurried down to my assistance and led me over the narrow divides which are miniature dykes and keep the water in the irrigated rice fields. He led me back to the path; I was falling behind with my limp. I was yet mastered it with any consistency; it just looked like I was trying to get a sick note from the doctor. He continued to lead me to the next fork, a choice of route where I would inevitably have made another mistake. He didn’t ask for it, or indicate that he expected it, but when I shook his hand I slipped him 50 rupees like ya grandma used to when the visit was over. (If you grew up in Nepal and visited granny who had such western habits, I’m assuming she did that when you went to leave. It’s the 50p pushed into your palm before you jumped into the back seat of your parents’ car and looked surreptitiously to see what half expected wealth she had gifted to you this time.) He was genuinely surprised and equally grateful. I think it was the right amount and the right time. Always a tricky equation to figure out, but his smile and glee told me I had got it just right. Now fuck off ya longhaired trespassing cripple, with ya idealistic childhood memories, he didn’t say.
Cripple I may be but the path flattened out as it followed the river, and strolling presented not significant pain. I managed to catch up with a group of English youths led by an insufferable older colonel type. ‘Right everyone pay attention, everyone, that means you too Samantha. I want you all smiling in this one, righty-ho, say cheese. Sorry it took so long’ not as sorry as I was. I got past two of the oblivious troop when they finally realized they were not the only people on the path. But decided I would sit in the shade and let attention deficit disorder Samantha and her dominated friends go on ahead. In the hope my progress would not be thwarted again by colonel flustered with the dip stick in the noodle restaurant, when he orders 7 different dishes for his party. Some people don't have a clue.
The kids started asking for rupees, the litter became more evident, the locals were drunk and the path had turned into a dirt road. Concrete and re-bar half built monstrosities were appearing all around and I was back at the alternative starting point. The only advantage I can see of starting here is the incentive not to turn back.
I caught a local bus for the 90 minute trip back to town.
I wandered back into Pokhara, I've been gone a day and a half, my friends have gone, left for Kathmandu and their room, the entire guesthouse was fully occupied. Baba the owner looked after me; I knew he would, a man of ample size hospitality and kindliness. Yeah that’s just what I want to do, limp around trying to find a room for the night. But he called around for me and led me to a neighbouring guesthouse.
I wonder if I should have taken a day off in the mountains and then carried on, but a stole round the lake two days later was enough to convince me I wasn’t up to it.
Alone and gimpy I do the homeless shuffle, I have 10 days to kill, I will find somewhere cheap and lovely to stay. As I go from guest house to lodge my introduction changes form, ‘can I see a single room’ to ‘I’d like to see you best single room, I'm alone, and will be staying a while’ that always gets their attention, I'm a marlin on their hook and they want a prize 10 dayer in their hotel at almost any cost. Without baggage I can easily escape their clasp and they need to bait it well to keep me interested. I find an end of terrace, cable TV, Wi-Fi, bit of a view room and haggle it down to 400rps a night £3.60 ‘I will come tomorrow, and don't be putting any 10% service charge on top of that.’
Its cut, dried, decided and singed for but for some reason I hobble into another lodge, down the driveway past the vegetable garden of cauliflowers and cannabis. ‘I would like to see your most wonderful room’ its sumptuous, windows on 3 walls, a private balcony, writing desk with a TV on the end, no nearby building work, a double bed with marshmallow pillows, carpet, and a flower garden to eat my breakfast in.

Very nice and how much will this one be? I'm thinking I’ll stretch to 600rps for this.
’2700 per night sir’
‘What?’ Oh shit, show me the steak when I want a burger.
We haggle, my 10 day duration casts its spell but he wants bigger wad that my wand can produce.
1170 plus tax. I walk away, that walk is always a slow one, wait for the call to come back. Even with the reluctance to leave such splendour and a dickey knee the call does not come. So I return anyway; I've shown my hand but dam it, I'm worth this place. I deserve such magnificence we settle on 1000rps all inclusive that’s less than £9 per night. The room even came with a long legged beauty included.

So I live on sandwiches, haven’t had a drink in 8 days, beer has western prices here and I can eat dinner for less the cost of 650ml of San Miguel.
And that's my Himalayan experience. At sunrise and set I climb to the roof to remind myself what I'm missing and simultaneously why I'm not there.

I hope it’s not the end of my hiking days; I'm going to have to slow the pace and possibly resort to dip sticks next time, because if I can’t carry my own load I'm not going at all. Well at least I still have biking, I dying to get back in the saddle and start leaning and stop limping.