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Diary
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Latest Update 2016 It has been almost 15 years since this trip but I have finally managed to move the site that was hosted before onto this free site and get all the photos and links working. Thanks for your patience - Gary Monday,
17 March 2003 Well
it appears that the travelling continues, although we may have reached our
destination - Sydney, Australia. This country/continent has so much to do
and see that it may take us the best part of a year out here to see at
least a little of it! We certainly didn’t come all this way to just go
back to the UK? Dom
and I have done different things over the past month so I’ll recap on
each: Dom: Having
met Marianne, a lovely Norwegian lass, in Thailand, he did a bit of travel
with her back down to Melbourne. She has a round the world ticket and has
already visited Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand before coming down to
Australia for around a month. Her trip around Australia incorporated
Darwin, Queensland and Sydney before moving onto Melbourne and flying onto
New Zealand. Next stop is Fiji and then onto the USA, before ending her
6-month round-trip back in Norway, in April.
After
a relaxing festive season, Dom got back on the bike and headed south again
down to Melbourne meeting Marianne. An opportunity to see the Great Ocean
Road again was not to be missed and with Marianne on the back they enjoyed
a few days relaxing and taking in the wonderful sites along Australia’s
favourite coastline. Back
to Melbourne, Marianne headed off to New Zealand and Dom headed off to
Tasmania. Who knows when they may meet again but as travellers do, I am
sure it will be soon. The
“Spirit of Tasmania”, more like an ocean liner than a ferry leaves
from Melbourne nightly headed for Devonport, Tasmania, takes around 10
hours. This luxury mode of transport not only accommodates over 1000
people but also carries the 500 cars that those people drive! Tasmania,
the largest island off the Australian coastline, is also Australia’s 8th
and almost forgotten state. But it is as steeped in history, early
settlers were believed to have thought it part of the mainland for a long
time. On discovering the Bass Strait, eventually they worked out that they
could cut weeks off their journey by not sailing out around the island. On
his 9 month African adventure in 1997, Dom met and made a good friend of
Jason. A born and bred Tasmanian food and beverage manager, he now lives
in Penguin, a short distance from Devonport. After not seeing each other
for 5 years, it was time for a visit. While
spending 3 weeks in and around the area, he stayed with Jason for around a
week. It didn’t take long to appreciate the relaxed way of life and the
wonderful surroundings Tasmania has to offer both in wildlife and culture.
Apparently, the best of Australia’s beer comes from Tasmania and the
locals certainly know a lot about that! Cascade and James Boags are just 2
of the top export beers that are brewed here. The lifestyle reminded Dom
of old Rhodesian/Zimbabwe days, a good old family braai (BBQ) on a
Saturday afternoon. These people are very family orientated and have very
close-knit families who all live in the same community. Now
down to the geography and places Dom visited on his bike. Tasmania is very
green, has an abundance of dairy, beef and crop farming around the whole
region and also a massive timber industry. Mining also generates a large
portion of their income with reserves of gold, copper and other rare
minerals. Directly
south of Penguin is beautiful down toward Cradle Mountain National Park.
Dom spent a few days riding the lovely winding roads through the valleys
and farming regions here. Leven canyon, Hellyer gorge and the Great
Western Tiers mountain range offer some fantastic scenery and are easily
accessible by motorbike. Dom
covered most of Tasmania in an anti clockwise direction after staying with
Jason, which took around 10 days. One of the dangers that stood out was
the wildlife hazard on the road at dawn and dusk. Australia is known for
this fact with kangaroos, wombats, wallabies and other creatures. In
Tasmania it appears that they are more evident, perhaps there is a larger
concentration of these animals on this wonderful island. Among the
wildlife seen, Dom managed to see his first Tasmanian devil and a rare
sight was a duckbill platypus. From
Penguin the rugged coastline is pretty with some lovely beaches all the
way out to Stanley and the most western point of Will North, is home to
some of Australia’s largest dairy farming herds. Some of this lush
forest area has been cleared for farming but otherwise it is still very
wild. Heading south down the Explorers Way, all off road but sometimes
good quality, other times deteriorating but manageable. One brave move was
to see Tasmania’s highest waterfall, Montezuma, via the 4-wheel drive
route. The “short” 16-kilometre journey took over an hour, as the road
quality was terrible! Fully loaded with panniers, fuel and camping gear,
the rocky road disappeared in front of you down steep ravines and straight
back up the other side with a river crossing in between! Getting to the
falls was well worth the effort, not that the drought at this time of year
could dampen the spirits but the trip back was again taxing and a learning
curve. Thoughts of Pakistan come rushing back… The
south west of Tasmania, home of the massive Franklin – Gordon Wild
Rivers National Park is relatively unexplored rainforest area. This very
wet area is home to Australia’s largest dams, Lake Gordon and Lake
Pedder. They hold 27 times the volume of water of Sydney harbour! The high
rainfall in Tasmania accounts for it’s abundance of fresh water and the
volume of dams it has. All of Tasmania’s electricity is by Hydo Electric
Power plants. If
you do make it out to Tasmania there is some interesting history
surrounding the area of Queenstown. The thriving mining industry, over
exhausted by mankind in the late 1900’s, turned a once lush and green
region into a sulphur polluted, eroded landscape. The gold and copper rich
area was mined to the detriment of the surrounding habitat and even today
the Queen and King rivers that pass through this area are so toxic that
they are stained orange. Nothing can survive in them. Having
spent a few days in Strahan, where there is a thriving tourist industry, a
visit to the newly reopened Abt railway is not to be missed. Originally
constructed over a century ago, this railway system was a key element used
in the transportation of gold and copper from the mines to the harbour
through some of the states wildest wilderness. Due to the steepness of the
terrain, this steam rack and pinion railway was built to carry these loads
along up to 1 in 20 gradients! Another bit of interesting Tasmanian history is that Huon pine comes from these south western parts, known worldwide for it’s boat building qualities. Macquarie harbour, similar in size to Sydney harbour, was once a thriving port when the mining industry was in it’s hey day but now is just a massive haven for weekend sailors. Tearing
himself away from the wonderful lush, green pastures of the west coast,
Dom decided he’d had enough of the wet weather and so next destination
was Hobart. This is the capital city of Tasmania and a beautiful setting.
The surrounding hills around this area allow spectacular views of the
wonderful coastline where you can see miles out to sea, islands and
beaches aplenty. This place reminded Dom of Sydney, though it’s minute
with a population of just over 100 000 compared with 4 million. Life
in and around Hobart has plenty to offer. The peninsulas of Tasman and
Forestier have some rugged terrain with Port Arthur, at the southern tip,
a day trip opportunity. Heading north via Swansea, the Freycinet Peninsula
is a splendid place to spend a few days out hiking. There are some
wonderful treks out into the hilly area and if you prefer the beach, some
of the best white sandy beaches are not far away either. North
bound, Dom stayed on the pretty coastline and visited the Bay of Fires;
the most outstanding feature of this area is the orange granite rock face
overhanging the crystal clear ocean below. Here there is a thriving
fishing industry and with the beauty of the clear blue sea, many sporting
enthusiasts use this area for scuba, snorkelling and spear fishing too. Crossing
from the east coast, Dom headed back to Penguin and Jason’s house across
some stunning scenery. The highlight of the trip back was the wonderful
winding roads, superb for motor biking. The roads are something that the
whole of Tasmania has an abundance of, whether you choose to go off road
or stick to the sealed roads. Overall
Dom covered 1200 miles (2000 kilometres) and of this around 300 kilometres
was off road. Once
arriving back in Melbourne, he headed back to Sydney for 2 weeks before
going to Auckland, New Zealand for a week. This was really just to renew
the tourist visa for another 6 months where if he left and returned he
would get another 6 months on his current visa. Monday, 13 January 2003 Well after almost 8 months, 228 days to be precise and 21 425 miles (34 280 kilometres) we finally reached our destination of Sydney! Yes, our quest to ride motorbikes from London to Sydney has been fulfilled! Our final stretch from Perth to Sydney was ridden in some extreme conditions, both freezing cold and very hot. We were again put to the test but we were very fortunate that the 1200 or so kilometre stretch across the deserts of the Nullabor Plain were overcast and not the usual 40 degrees plus. The last stretch from Adelaide to Sydney was in comfort as George and Jacqui, Gary's brother and his wife, joined us in a luxury, fully equipped campervan. We left Perth
on Wednesday, 4 December, the day of the solar eclipse and rode south
via Banbury and the wine farms of Margaret River before camping at Northcliffe
for the night. We visited the Cape Leeuwin, where the Indian and South
Oceans meet, but could not spend long at the coast due to the cold sea
breeze chilling us beyond comfort! It was great to spend our first night outdoors camping. It had been months since we'd last camped way back in Europe. Australia is certainly geared up for campers and overland travellers, more so than Europe. We have been very impressed with the lovely facilities at the caravan parks and campsites all along the route and, after Asia, it was a pleasure to get back to civilisation with self-catering kitchens, hot showers, braai facilities and all at really reasonable prices. It is also worth mentioning how friendly the Australian locals are, wherever we spent some time we met some really lovely people. This country certainly has a lot going for it! We visited one of the beautiful gum and pine forests where the both the most ancient and enormous trees exist around Pemberton. There are 3, which can be climbed so we chose the tallest of the 3, Bicentennial, which stands at some 68 metres. If not the height of the tree, then the hundreds of metal stakes hammered into its side grab the attention at once. But, after deciding to climb this monster, you begin the ascent and before long you are staring down, wondering if you made the right decision! It is certainly worth the journey up to the top as the view from the 2-ton metal tree house is exceptional. It's not for the feint hearted or those afraid of heights though! We continued along the national highway 1 along the chilly coast through Walpole and Denmark to Albany for lunch. We were going to stay here for a night but with the wind chill factor at around zero we decided to push inland a bit to get away from the cold. We headed toward Mount Barker and camped inside the Stirling National Park. We were fortunate
the following day when, on our way east, a cold front started to push
in from the west. In overcast and cool conditions we rode most of the
day to reach the lovely coastal town of Esperance. After finishing the
daily chores of setting up camp and shopping at the local supermarket
for dinner, we explored the lovely coastline around Esperance. It certainly
is a lovely little town, surfers enjoying the waves in one of the bays,
people walking their dogs over the scenic paths overlooking the 15 or
so islands in the bay and other people enjoying the fantastic sunset on
offer. The Nullabor: The great Nullabor was ahead of us once we left Esperance and it proved to be some of the most desolate terrain we have ever come across apart from the Sahara desert. It reminded us very much of the Karoo in the Cape region of South Africa. It took us 3 days to cross the Nullabor from Norseman to Port Augusta, stopping at Ceduna on the second night. With the cool weather conditions, we managed to do some of the longest distances to date on our trip. We bush camped near Madura on the first night and did a record 464 miles (742 kilometres) to reach Ceduna the following day, missing the solar eclipse crowds by just a few days. The only
way to describe the Nullabor is a road heading east with nothing but savannah
like bush on the left or right for as far as the eye can see. The cross
winds were very taxing: spending 8 hours on the road, laying the bike
at 45 degrees to stay upright is not my idea of fun! Something worth mentioning was the number of cyclists we saw, spoke to and passed along the Nullabor. We saw at least 6 individual riders, spoke to 3 of them and were amazed what these guys were up against! We worked out that what we travel on our bikes in 1 hour takes them at least 1 day to cover. One chap had only 1 leg….so when you are down, always remember that there is always someone worse off than you! Once we reached
Port Augusta, the Flinders mountain range escorted us in towards Adelaide
but it was still a very warm and barren stretch. The crosswinds were still
very strong so we assumed the proverbial 45-degree position for the day
on the bikes, again! It had taken
us 7 full days riding to get from Perth to Adelaide, which is about 2
200 miles (3 700 kilometres). Looking back at the Nullabor stretch, I
am not so sure you'll catch me there on a motorbike again - ever! Adelaide: Adelaide was our introduction back to "civilisation"! After crossing some pretty vast, uninhabited, barren terrain, it was a welcome sight! We found a campsite about 10 kilometres out of town and set up camp where we would spend 4 days to explore the city and surrounding areas. The highlights were riding through the mountains north just outside of town and visiting the Barossa wine valley. Adelaide seems like a great place but we did have to get used the different and, sometimes dangerous, way in which the locals drive. Wheel spinning V8 sports ute's seem to be the way forward… Jacqui, George's
wife, flew in on Saturday morning and we started our travels back to Sydney
in convoy. George and Jacqui hired a luxury campervan that had a shower/toilet,
fridge and stove, etc. so we were able to upgrade our travelling by motorbike
to first class! We put our entire luggage including panniers in the van
and so didn't have to carry a thing. Most days included a minimum of about 4 hours travel but with a full breakfast in the van and then a well-prepared lunch the time flew by! The evening meals were real home cooking and with a cold beer in hand, we were really living like kings, those tough days out in Pakistan on the bike now long forgotten…. After a wine tasting day out in the Barossa valley where we visited some of the great Australian vineyards of Jacobs Creek, Penfolds and Wolf Blass among others we started our journey east heading for Sydney. Great Ocean Road: After a late start from Adelaide on Sunday, 15 December, we drove east over the Adelaide hills and Murray River through another of Australia's many wine regions to reach the picturesque Mount Gambier by sunset. We visited the volcanic crystal blue lakes this area is famous for and enjoyed the lovely green scenery that surrounded us. The Great Ocean Road lay ahead of us on Monday so we had an early start. It is fairly flat and uneventful in the first section, not quite like Chapmans Peak, but it did get a lot more interesting. We visited the touristy spots including the 12 Apostles, London Bridge and the many gorges, natural hole-in-the-walls and cliffs that are so beautifully contrast against the blue ocean. George swapped transport with me and I drove the campervan while he and Dom tried as much as possible to get their knees down on the corners through the forests. We drove on to Port Cameron and stopped for the night at Apollo Bay. After sundowners on the beach and a swim those willing to brave the cold water, we headed back to our campsite for a lovely cooked dinner and some Australian beer and wine. Tuesday, 17 December was a continuation of the Great Ocean Road and this day was more like the Chapmans Peak we know. The lovely winding road snaking it's way up and down the mountains but the road was cut deep into the side of the cliffs that fall to the sea below, perfect for motor biking! Geelong's beachfront was the lunch stop before we navigated our way into Melbourne for 2 nights. Melbourne: We found a comfortable campsite some 10 kilometres from the CBD with a lovely pool so after checking in we spent some time relaxing and swimming. Paul Healey, a family friend from South Africa now living here, was kind enough to offer us his time and superb knowledge of Melbourne. He drove us around the city and surrounding areas before we had dinner on the waterfront in St. Kilda. The highlight was being driven around the Albert Park F1 track, as it is just a normal road apart from that one weekend in March. The following day we explored the CBD by tram and did a Yara river cruise down to Williamstown and back. On Thursday we were once again greeted by an awesome sunrise and after an early start we left Melbourne headed inland towards the east coast. The mercury reached into the late 30's and early 40's so Lake Hume was a good place to spend the night. The Murray River runs into Lake Hume and also forms the border between the state of Victoria and New South Wales (NSW). Unfortunately this region is feeling the effects of the countrywide drought so the lake is only at 10% but this didn't stop us from spending a few hours swimming in it. We headed back over the Murray into Victoria up into the overlooking mountains for some sundowners and to watch the most awesome sunset. The penultimate day was again very warm so after an early morning swim we headed off eastward on the M31. Today the terrain was uneventful, dry and warm so we looked for another lake where we could spend the night. Unfortunately Lake George was off our route so we adjusted and did 30 kilometres off road. But on reaching Lake George we realised that this "lake" was nothing more than an empty basin! We drove to the nearest town of Goulding and spent the night there before finally heading into Sydney, only some 200 kilometres away, the following day. Sydney: The day had finally arrived; we were finally heading into Sydney! Another 30-degree day and we were greeted with some fantastic scenery on entering the outskirts of Sydney. It almost appears that water surrounds the most populated in Australia, no matter the direction you look is the sea, a river or an estuary. The past the airport, which is built into Botany Bay and then we crossed over the majestic Harbour Bridge with the Opera House and Darling Harbour in full view. Wow, this certainly is something I'll not forget for some time to come, this is a beautiful city! Christmas: Over the past few weeks we have spent the festive season enjoying the Australian lifestyle in Sydney. We were very fortunate to get tickets to see the Australian symphony orchestra at the stunning Opera House, nothing like a bit of a culture shock after being on the road for so long! It was a superb display of music and an education! Our Christmas day was a picnic lunch spent in a park close to Chinamans beach with family and friends. The highlight was swimming across the estuary and playing some rugby in the park. This is certainly a change for the better after spending so many cold Christmas days in Europe over the past few years since leaving sunny South Africa. New Year: New Year was certainly one to remember as a family friend, Brad, arranged a top floor apartment in the prestigious Kirribilli suburb. The flat was on the water overlooking both the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, the perfect setting for the awesome fireworks display. A superb evening followed with hundreds of thousands of people lining the banks of the harbour, some people had been camping there for a few days just to secure their place! With a population of 4 million, Sydney had certainly had the right idea for a party. The fireworks displays, estimated to have cost some A$5m, were placed on the bridge and on various ships/barges within the harbour. The New Year was welcomed in with some cold Windhoek's and champagne while we enjoyed the huge fireworks that ignited the sky and welcomed in the New Year. There is
not a day that we were not busy during the festive season. There is so
much to do here; it's impossible to be bored! We visited the Hunter wine
valley for a day as a group, some on motorbikes, some in cars as it's
a 2-hour drive along the north coast. Itinerary for the past few weeks: Wednesday,
4 December Thursday,
5 December Friday, 6
December Saturday,
7 December Sunday, 8
December Monday, 9
December Tuesday,
10 December Thursday,
12 December Friday, 13
December Saturday,
14 December Sunday, 15
December Monday, 16
December Tuesday,
17 December Wednesday,
18 December Thursday,
19 December Friday, 20
December Saturday,
21 December
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has had a helping hand in the success of our lifetime trip. To our sponsors, K&N, HEL Performance, Michelin, NGK, DID and SKF bearings, a special thank you for providing us with world class performance products, it certainly made our life much easier out on the road. To our family and friends who have been out there supporting us both in the preparation stages and while we were out on the road, your patience, support and help has been greatly appreciated. Special thanks to Karen, Damian, Kelly, Andy, Rulan, George and Jacqui. A great big thank you to "mom to be" Wendy for the design of our fantastic website! And to all those people that we have met, both in person, and via the Internet, we have thoroughly enjoyed all of your help and company along the route. It's amazing how many people are travelling or who have an interest in this type of travel. We have had almost 3000 hits on our site, and emails most days to reply to, which tells us that there must be some interest out there! For all those
people with ideas of travelling here are a few words of advice: A Happy New Year to you all in 2003 and we certainly hope you have enjoyed the journey as much as we have!
Tuesday, 3 December 2002 We are currently in Perth, western Australia. We have been on the road 210 days and covered 17 522 miles (28 035 kilometres). You may ask yourself, wasn't that our last update: Perth and no more mileage! That is correct but when we last wrote this we had yet to get our bikes so it's been almost 3 weeks since we arrived in Perth and only a few days since we got our bikes. In the past few weeks Gary did an organised trip up to Exmouth (2000km) and back while Dom spent some quality time with his sister, Rulan and husband Andy. Last week we were notified that our bikes had finally reached port Freemantle, close to Perth and that we could go and collect them. But we were in for a few surprises: When collecting them the "agent" who had acted on our behalf charged us more to simply unload the bikes from the ship than it did for the entire shipment from Malaysia to Perth (US$260)! Ecu Line are a large shipping organisation but they certainly know how to rip people off! To take our crated bikes out of the ships container cost A$300 per bike and another A$75 to steam clean them. There were a few other charges for administration, etc. so we ended up paying A$550 (US$ 310) per bike just to get them from ship to warehouse, absolutely incredible. Unfortunately there is little you can do to stop this from happening and it's that simple: they had our bikes and we had to pay! We put this down to experience (it would have cost the same to fly the bikes and we would have had them the next day!) and proceeded with the Australian regulations: 1. Visit
the licensing department and got some temporary movement permits (A$13)
along with an examination for roadworthiness (A$63); We had expected some costs to enter Australia but not quite as expensive as when they eventually added up to around US$ 725 per bike! (US$ 260 for Malaysia and US$465 for Australia!). Advice: fly! Once we had done all that we were up and away but it took the better part of 3 days to sort all this out and thanks to having Tommy, Rulan and Andy's Toyota land cruiser for transport, we were able to do it quicker than catching busses or taxis. Over this past weekend we did a service to both bikes (oil and oil filter change), though Dom adjusted the valve clearance on Maggie and also got his carburettors balanced. Tomorrow we will be leaving sunny Perth to start our journey across to Sydney hopefully in time for Christmas. The number 1 highway, which circumnavigates Australia, shows the distance from Perth to Sydney at 4500km so we will have our work cut out. It is the middle of summer now and the weather forecast for most regions is in the 30's though some reach the 40's! The south west coast is beautiful and green so we'll spend a few days around Margaret River, Albany and Esperance before crossing the Nullabor Plain, a trek of over 1000 kilometres through the barren outback. From there we meet Gary's brother, George, in Adelaide where he will accompany us back Sydney. Christmas and New Year are not far away, can't believe it's that time again, only seems like a few months ago it was last Christmas, and we'll be spending this in Sydney with some family and friends. We shall not be updating the diary until we reach Sydney so please bear with us during this transition period of a few weeks, we will be contactable via email as always. Gary will
end his adventure in Sydney and Dom has still to decide what to do, whether
to continue his quest to ride around Australia or settle down and find
a job… Tuesday, 19 November 2002 We are currently in Perth, western Australia. We have been on the road 196 days and covered 17 522 miles (28 035 kilometres). After leaving the wet Cameron Highlands, we were fortunate to have good weather all the way down to Port Klang via Kuala Lumpur. We used the main freeway, which has tolls for all vehicles except motorcycles, which are allowed to go free. The narrow paths that bypass the tollbooths need a certain amount of concentration though! We stopped off for fuel and were amazed at how technologically advanced Malaysia is. You have to pay inside first or by credit card at the pump before you receive fuel, only then can the fuel you have paid for be pumped. This is also a sign of the security measures these companies have to take due to the high crime rate. We eventually found Port Klung (on the map there are 4 Klungs; one is an island, one is the nearest town to the port?) and our agents office. As it was Sunday the offices were closed but we found a central hotel nearby, Hotel Embassy, where we stayed for 4 nights. They allowed us to park our bikes inside the hotel lobby, as there was no suitable safe parking otherwise. The little port town of Klung is not too bad. There are very few foreigners staying out here (about 60 kilometres from Kuala Lumpur) but there are decent restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds) and comfortable accommodation available. We caught
a taxi into KL to do the tourist thing and visited the Petronas twin Towers,
the highest building in the world so the Malaysians claim. They stand
at some 460m and if you try to look up at them from the ground, you are
sure to get a sore neck! Due to the tremendous amount of rain coming down, we decided to catch a movie - our first cinema visit in 6 months! Wynona Ryder and Adam Sandler made our visit worthwhile in the comedy, Mr. Deeds. The shopping mall built under the towers is fantastic and with 4 floors of all the latest gadgets, restaurants and an ADSL Internet café, we spent some more time there before heading back to Klang. We used KL's very modern tube system, very similar to the Jubilee line in London, and then the train to find our way home. It takes around 1 hour from KL central station and runs very regularly. We used Lucas Yap, the shipping agent recommended on Horizons Unlimited. His work is very professional and he is an extremely helpful guy. The details are below: Freight Logistics
Corporation Telephone:
(603) 3165 5730 / 3730 Email: flc@myjaring.net
or Lucas' email: lucasflc@myjaring.net Because so many people have been using him to ship their bikes recently, Lucas has put together a small costing website. Here is the address: http://www.geocities.com/flcmy4bikers There is some useful information on this including sailing schedule, various charges for Malaysian shipping and general information. We spent about an hour sorting out the paperwork with Lucas and then a few days cleaning the bikes. Australia is very strict as far as cleanliness of vehicles entering and even fumigates all crates before they depart. For the Saturday sailing, the bikes have to be ready for customs inspection on the previous Thursday. We spent a few hours crating them on the Wednesday as we were flying out early on the Thursday morning. We followed the carpenters from Lucas office down to the warehouse and within 3 hours the bikes were ready for shipment! The crate sizes had already been decided and are larger than our Nepal ones, but worked out to be 3.5 cubic metres, as shipping is charged by size rather than weight. The total cost came to US$ 600 for both bikes and this includes the DHL cost of couriering our carnets and the shipping bill to Perth. You have the option of waiting for the customs inspection to take place but the ship bill is only produced after the ship has set sail. This meant we were going to be waiting around for at least 3 extra days. On Thursday morning at 05:25 we caught the first train out of Port Klang and got to KL central at 06:30. The Malaysians have technology working for them in many ways, no more so than at KL central station. It is a pleasure to walk into this sparkling clean station with overland trains servicing most of Malaysia, brand new tubes serving the city and a TGV service covering the 50 kilometre journey from KL central to KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) in just 28 minutes. This technology we have not seen even in Europe! It's interesting to note the RM 500 (US$ 125) fine notices warning people not to eat, drink or smoke while using these services. Our flight from KL went smoothly and, after hearing stories about how busy the flights were at this time of year, we were pleasantly surprised to have an empty Malaysian Airlines plane! Dom and I both had 4 seats to ourselves and enjoyed the comfort of catching up on a few movies, while enjoying 1st class service - and a few beers! Immigration was no problem on arrival in Perth, something we had prepped ourselves for just in case (we only had 1 way tickets). We had acquired our 6-month tourist visas a few months earlier in London and had heard some stories that without a return ticket we would run into problems at the Perth immigration terminal. It was a
breath of fresh air to arrive in Australia, the "first world ness"
immediately apparent! Families with children are taken out of the queue
to be fast tracked, sniffer dogs are employed to sift out any drugs and
the general feeling you get is that of a well-organised government department.
Rulan, Dom's sister, met us with wide smile! The last time we'd seen her was some 6 months ago out of our rear view mirrors back in London on a cold, rainy morning! We have been kindly offered a place to stay with her and Andy, her husband in South Perth. They have recently moved down here after spending some time in Darwin and London. We have been in Australia for 5 days now and the time has flown by! We have been treated to the wonderful relaxed lifestyle that Perth has to offer. The weekend was spent on the beach and in the rather chilly sea. The summer is just starting and, although it was 38 degrees centigrade on our arrival, it's been in the late 20's and early 30's over the past few days. Perth reminds us a bit of Cape Town; it is quite a windy city but the relaxed atmosphere also reminds us that it is just a big town really! We have the
rest of this week to chill out and be real tourists before our bikes arrive
here next Monday, the 25th and we can once again become adventure motorcyclists! On Monday
we visited Perth for the first time and it's amazing how US like it is!
The huge shopping malls, roads in the city are wide with everything modern
and well kept. Itinerary of the past few days: Sunday, 10
November No other
riding apart from a few miles down to the warehouse to crate the bikes. Sunday, 11 November 2002 We are currently in the Cameron Highlands, central Malaysia. We have been on the road 187 days and covered 17 365 miles (27 784 kilometres). We have been in Malaysia for 11 days now and to put it plainly; it's nothing like Thailand! The surprise was on entering we were not required to show any paperwork for our bikes, let alone any of the stuff we are carrying! The border we crossed at, Betong, is not the main post but still has a steady flow of traffic through it. The passport control took about 15 minutes and then customs simply asked us what we had and waved us on! The simplest country to enter since departure from London and the border guards said, "We are trying to promote tourism here in Malaysia". So in less than half an hour we were in Malaysia and we noticed a few sudden changes from Thailand: 1. Muslim
culture is very apparent, women with heads covered and mosques in every
town; We stayed at Alor Setar for 2 days and tried, without success, to get our bikes and ourselves to the islands of Langkawi. There are no car ferries to this island so you have to check your bike/car in as cargo. The ships sail every night and you collect your bike/car on Langkawi the following day. However, we weren't happy about leaving our bikes for someone else to ride on and off the ship so we decided against going altogether. Alor Setar is not very touristy so we got a good taste of "real" Malaysia. It does boast having the only ADSL Internet café (in the Pacific centre, 4th floor) we have come across on our trip and the 169 metre Menara telecom tower. It has the closest port to Langkawi but mainly the passenger boats, unless you send your bike/car the cargo route. There are some good cheap hotels but also some really expensive ones around. We stayed at the basic Miramar hotel for MR 35 (£6) and found a good western restaurant close by, the Regency Hotel. After the Langkawi let down, we rode down to Penang, an island linked to the mainland by a 4 lane, 13-kilometre bridge. The beaches the Lonely Planet raves about are in the north of the island so we rode through Georgetown, the main city on the island, to Batu Ferringi where we stayed at Baba's guest house for 3 nights. The beaches are nothing to get excited about, dirty water with jet skiers, para sailing and a few fishing boats make it unsuitable for swimming. There are quite a few restaurants aimed at the tourist trade so you are not short on choice! There is also a Nando's close by (a South African chicken franchise) so we felt right at home for a few days! We did one ride around the island on the western side and it's quite a pretty place. There is a dam and quite a few rural fishing villages on the west, a complete change to the east side that is busy with roads, traffic and a busy city, Georgetown. We had our first theft of the trip while in Penang, quite a disappointment really. The 2 10 litre bags, which fit onto the side of our bikes, were cut off Gary's bike. They were locked but still some valuable clothes (wet gear, jacket and pants) have made riding in rain since then quite uncomfortable. They are also difficult to replace so be warned, even if your bike is under cover and locked, they are still vulnerable! After 3 days in Penang, we decided to head up to the Cameron Highlands, a green tea growing region high up above the coast at some 2000 metres. We have been here for 4 days now and been staying at Twin Pines backpackers hostel. It's basic but has hot water and there are loads of travellers coming and going daily so it's quite a happening place! This region is not green without reason; it's rained every day since we've been here but mainly in the afternoons, monsoon season! We have managed to get out on the bikes to sample the lovely winding roads in the dry and visited the local tea factory, plantations and the highest road in Peninsula Malaysia above the tea estates. Things seem different here to other parts of Malaysia we've visited as this area used to be British and so it's more relaxed up here. The many Landrovers and pubs are signs the British were here! We've caught up on world news, read many motorbike magazines, watched a few movies/sport during the rainy spells as the satellite TV and VCD player offer you something to do indoors! Yesterday we spent most of the day cleaning the bikes, preparation for sending them to Australia. The customs guys in Australia are quite strict so all mud has to be cleaned off the bikes and they even fumigate them before they leave Malaysia to be 100 % sure no foreign virus/species enters their soil! Today we
ride down to Port Klung, via Kuala Lumpur (KL) to arrange the shipment
of our bikes to Perth on Sunday, 17 November. The bikes have to be checked
in through customs the Wednesday before, so we'll spend some time getting
wooden crates made up and doing some packing before flying out to Perth
ourselves on Thursday, 14th. The bikes only arrive a week later so we'll
be in Perth staying with Rulan and Andy, Dominic's sister and her husband,
until the bikes are ready for clearance. Thursday,
31 October Friday, 1
November Saturday,
2 November Monday, 4
November Tuesday,
5 November Wednesday,
6 and Thursday 7 November Friday, 8
November Thursday, 31 October 2002 We are currently at Bang Lang dam in southern Thailand, which is about 70 kilometres from the Malaysian border. We have been on the road 177 days and covered 16 708 miles (26 733 kilometres). We spent another 2 days in Ko Lanta due to some rain that forced us to further enjoy the relaxed lifestyle the island has to offer. The mud roads are quite steep in parts and not suitable for a fully laden bike! We did a ride around the island to visit the Mai Kaew caves. The highlight, apart from getting very muddy, was swimming inside a waterhole in the dark cave. We visited 3 caves that interlink via small tunnels, some of which you are required to crawl through! We stopped off in port of Saladan to see if there was any diving but most companies only start on 1 November. The following day we visited the waterfall close to Waterfall Bay resort. It was about a 2 hour hike through the rubber tree plantations, where we watched the locals making rubber mats. Since leaving
Ko Lanta, we have not done much riding. We rode from Ko Lanta down the
west coast through Sikao, Trang and Kantang before staying at Hat Chao
Mai, a quiet fishing village in Trang province, where not many tourists
visit. We stayed at the only beach resort there, the simple Sinchai's
Chaomai resort. On the first evening we were in Hat Chao Mai, we had dinner in the nearby village at a local Thai restaurant and met Amorn Buranachan. He was so friendly and hospitable to us that we felt like we had known him for years! He offered us his time to show us around his "back yard" and we were amazed how much the area around Trang actually has to offer. His knowledge of the area could not be condensed into a guidebook! An electrical engineer by qualification, he spent some time working in Bangkok in that field but a love for nature and the outdoors led him to give that up and move out to Trang. His lifestyle now offers him much more freedom compared to that of Bangkok and he is now a freelance graphic design artist. The Internet allows him to still work in Bangkok but live some 800 kilometres away, what a life! He took us on 3 day trips: Libong Island is visible from the mainland and only a half hour longtail boat ride away. It is not very big, has 3 typical Thai fishing villages and a national park. We hired scooters and spent the day riding around the island. There are few, if any, foreigners that visit island around this time of year. We found a beach to snorkel but due to the damage that dynamite fishing has done to a lot of this region, the snorkelling was not worth a mention. It has been 3 years since the protection of national park status was given to this area and there are positive signs that the coral reefs are beginning to regenerate. There is one resort where you can stay overnight and in season it could accommodate quite a few tourists. The following
day Amorn took us on a longtail island hopping tour. We first visited
Ko Muk's Emerald cave, a lagoon not accessible at high tide that leads
to the most gorgeous beach. To get to the beach you are required to swim
through the 80m stretch of sea in the dark, but when you get to the inside
of the cave, the view is worth it! The 3rd day
was spent away from the coast as we headed into the tropical forests and
mountainous region east of Trang. The Khao Pu-Khao Ya national park and
Khao Banthat Wildlife reserve have a number of rivers running through
so some 10 massive waterfalls are located in and around the park. We visited
2 of them, Ton Te and Kachong. Ton Te has a 45-degree, 100m rock face
that the water glides down and into a lovely pool so we spent a few hours
swimming there. After lunch we moved up to Kachong falls, somewhat different
in that the water falls vertically so the current created is quite immense.
It took some effort to swim up the narrow channel, as the current is strong
and the channel deep. Anyone wishing to contact Amorn for information on bird watching, jungle trekking or anything Eco-Friendly: Email: amorn_b_chan@hotmail.com That evening we had a few too many Thai beers (Singha, Leo and Chang) so the following day was a bit subdued as we tried to nurse our hangovers. We left Sinchai's resort yesterday after saying our goodbyes to the friends we had made and hopefully we'll be meeting them for Christmas and New Year in Sydney, which is only a few weeks away…. can't believe it's November already! We had planned to reach Langkawi Island but, after a late start and wanting to visit Bang Lang dam on route, we decided to stay another night in Thailand before entering Malaysia. Yesterday we rode east through Trang to Phatthalung on route 4 before turning south and into Hat Yai. After stopping for a drink we joined route 43 and then route 408, arriving in Na Thawi. Routes 42 and 409 from Na Thawi to Yala offered some lovely hilly, winding, well-tarred road and so are worth a mention should you visit this area on a bike. From Yala it's a 140 kilometres to the Malaysian border post of Betong. We stopped off for the night at Bang Lang dam, which is well worth a stop. The accommodation is set up high overlooking the dam wall with a pool and good restaurant. It is a somewhat more expensive to what we've become used to in rural Thailand but the rooms are very comfortable with air conditioning and hot water showers. As we are about to enter Malaysia, it's quite sad to be leaving Thailand. We've been here for 2 months, visited some awesome places, and done some world class diving, met and made some great friends and ridden nearly 6000 kilometres on some fantastic roads! If you have a taste for travelling then we certainly recommend Thailand, an all-round great place to spend some time whatever your time or budget allow. Itinerary of the past few days: Tuesday,
22 October Wednesday,
23 October Thursday,
24 October Saturday,
26 October Sunday, 27
October Monday, 28
October Wednesday,
30 October Monday 21 October 2002. We are currently in Ko Lanta, an island off the west coast of southern Thailand. We have been on the road 167 days and covered 16 152 miles (25 843 kilometres). We spent another day in Phuket before heading to Khao Lak, some 120 kilometres up north on the west coast. We got in another few hours of snorkelling around the point off Karon beach of which the highlight was seeing a large female cuttlefish lay and insert her eggs far into a rock for safety. We must have watched her for about 15 minutes and we could actually reach out and touch her without her getting too stressed. It was sad to leave Karon, as the snorkelling is world class! It was interesting to meet up with Ralf and Caroline Koebler on our last night in Phuket, a German couple who have been on the road for 18 months now on 2 new Honda Transalp 650's. They have done over 50,000 kilometres and spent most of their time in Australia and New Zealand before shipping their bikes up to Singapore. They are now on their way to Europe via Asia and perhaps Russia if not the Middle East. We rode up to Khao Lak on Wednesday where Brian, the manager at Phuket Divers informed us that there weren't enough divers for our 3 day liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands. We were disappointed but as the season is only just starting now it's understandable. The best time to dive the Similan Islands is in December up until April and we were simply too early. However, after checking into some simple accommodation at Happy Lagoon on the beach, we headed for dinner at a beach bar. There we met another dive instructor, Nigel and he told us they were doing day trips out to the Similans most days. It was at 12pm and after 4 beers that he told us that they would pick us up at 7am! On Thursday morning early we left for the Similan Islands by boat and arrived there around 4 hours later. The sea swell was quite bad so it took a little longer than usual. We did 2 dives, first at Elephant Head and the second at Turtle Gulley with lunch in between. The dives were superb and worth the long trip, it's a pity we would only spend one day there! Like the rest of Thailand, the water was crystal clear and the life similar to what we had experienced in our other dives. The only thing different was that we saw turtles for the first time and a few different species of Angel (Emperor and Regal) and Butterfly fish (Raccoon). We left Khao Lak the following day to move down to Krabbi. We briefly stopped off in Ao Nang but decided it was too touristy and we continued down to Ko Lanta, an island south in Krabi province. The marine national park off Ko Lanta was the reason we came as it is a popular diving spot but we found out upon arrival that we were too early to dive here yet. We caught 2 flatbed car ferries to get to the south island; the north island doesn't offer any accommodation. It is then a 20km drive along a dirt road to get to the national park. We found Waterfall Bay Resort, built close to a quiet cove; it has accommodation to suit all budgets. We have a large bungalow built high up on stilts for a few pounds a night. The travellers here are friendly and we've met 2 great couples within a few days of being here: Mark and Kate, Ducatti and BMW motorbike owners themselves, were from Nederland, Colorado and Markus and Sonja, who also live in London, are from Austria. Ko Lanta is a quiet retreat off the beaten track and has a lot to offer. It is somewhat different to the other islands we have visited in that it has a strong Muslim community; some 95% of the population here are Muslim. The diving, in season, is up to the usual high standard that most of the Andaman west coast islands have to offer here in Thailand. The island is not very developed so the thick forest is ideal for hiking and getting away into the hills. There are a number of scenic waterfalls and even a gypsy village on the eastern side of the island. We have been here for a few days now and it's a refreshing change from the normal touristy spots we've visited. Most tourists come from Krabi by boat, as there are no tourist buses that visit. Yesterday we took a boat trip out to Ko Rhok, an island visible on the horizon about 1 hour away by speedboat. It's a small island with only a few tents for accommodation if you wish to stay overnight but it has little else. There we snorkelled and enjoyed a day in paradise with its white sandy beaches. We even found several hermit crabs and raced them up the beach. We will probably be spending a few more days here before going on further south. We also may consider coming back to Thailand after entering Malaysia as we have a renewable visa but we have to leave the country in order to renew it. Itinerary of the past few days: Wednesday, 15 October Thursday, 16 October Friday, 17 October Saturday, 18 to Monday, 21 October Monday 14 October 2002. It was with great shock that we read the news of the death of Bracken's John Hill. He was not just an employee at Bracken but one of the most knowledgeable and helpful motorcyclists we were so fortunate to have known. Anyone who had any dealings with John will agree, that no job was too small for him to undertake. He spent many an hour helping us with our trip preparations and it is a tragic loss to the motorcycle touring fraternity. Our deepest sympathy goes out to his family and the Bracken team in London. We are currently in Phuket, southern Thailand. We have been on the road 160 days and covered 15 901 miles (25 442 kilometres). We have spent the last week in
Phuket, further enjoying the wonderful island lifestyle Thailand has to
offer. Phuket is Thailand's biggest island and is accessible by road over
Sarasin Bridge, which allows you to cross the Khlong Tha Nun channel. On
the West side of Phuket is the Andaman Sea and on the east is the Gulf of
Thailand. We haven't done much on the riding front, getting from Ko Sumui to Phuket took only a day and since then we've been enjoying what Phuket has to offer. We caught the ferry from Thong Yang on Sumui at 9am and got to Don Sak around 11am. We don't quite know how but they managed to fit all 50 cars and a few scooters on board. We then rode west through Surat
Thani, continuing along route 401 before leaving it to join route 415,
south to meet the coastal route 402 into Phuket. This area is tropical and
so, very similar to that of Ko Sumui, huge forests with farming the main
industry. Over the last few days we've done a few rides around the island to see the various sites, visit the beaches and really see what's on offer here. The main activities seem to be water related: scuba diving, parasailing, water skiing, jet skiing, etc. There are quite a few big motorbike shops offering some lovely road bikes. You can get anything from a CBR 400 to a GSX 1300 for around 10 - 15 pounds! We may hire one this week to get our road skills back on track… On Wednesday we met an interesting American/German guy, David. He has been driving a similar route to us over the last 1 and a half years but in a Mercedes truck he's converted into an all terrain camper. It is massive, weighing some 10 tons, and can hold over 1000 litres of diesel so you can imagine the size of it! His wife, him and his 6 year old son have travelled from Germany down through North Africa, then back to Germany and through the Middle East to Bangladesh. They then shipped their monster to Malaysia and have since driven up through Laos and Vietnam before coming down south again. The "unimog" type vehicle goes almost anywhere and has such great clearance that even small river crossings go unnoticed. On the back they have a Suzuki DR 350 and a 3-man boat with a 7hp motor! There isn't much place they can't get to with these 3 modes of transport! They also plan to get to Australia but the cost of shipping is rather expensive. We finally met up with Goose and Lucy on their way down to Malaysia. They are from the Uk and, after shipping their BMW 1100 to South Africa, have ridden through Africa and then across the same countries we have. They are now in a rush to get to Melbourne by Christmas so rode all day down to Sepang to see the motorcycle grand prix, before shipping their bike to Perth and riding around Australia. Lucy has residency so they are planning on settling in Melbourne when they reach there. The snorkelling here is fantastic and you almost feel you are scuba diving as the life in the water is equivalent. We did a few hours off Kata beach close to Phoo Island and saw huge moray eels, butterfly and angelfish, triggerfish and sweetlips but the rare powder blue surgeonfish was certainly a highlight. We are still learning all the ocean life so it's a steep learning curve right now. Dom bought a chart and so now we can tell the difference between all the colourful life on offer. It is easy to get them mixed up! As the snorkelling is so good and the water so clear, the visibility is around 20 metres, we decided to book an overnight scuba trip to the Phi Phi Islands for Friday and Saturday. This is where the The Beach was filmed and so a pretty popular destination. The islands are around 3 hours away by boat but the trip we went on incorporated a dive at Shark Point, around 1.5 hours away. We left Chalong; Phuket's busy port at 9am on Calypso diving's boat, Greta. She is well equipped specifically for diving and can hold 25 divers at one time. No sooner had we got onto the boat with 10 other divers, were we in the water at Shark Point. This is simply a rock sticking out of the water in the middle of nowhere! The diving was superb, loads of life to see and the water warm and clear. The highlight was seeing 2, 3 metre, harmless leopard sharks, one asleep on the bottom, the other floating past us like we didn't exist. We did 2 more dives close to the Phi Phi islands (Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Ley) and began to realise why this area is so popular among divers. The life under the sea is incredible and with little currents, warm tropical waters and harmless creatures below, Thailand certainly has to be one of the worlds best dive sites on offer. The 4th and final dive of the day was in the bay of Phi Phi Don and was at night. There was not much out at 7pm but we did manage to see some 2m great barracuda out to feed as well as a few large red crabs, cuttlefish and some sleeping groupers. We spent a few hours looking around Phi Phi Don, the only habitable island, before returning to the boat to sleep for the night. Most of the other divers chose to sleep on the shore but for only a few hours we decided to save our pennies and chose the boat. The mosquito's, heat and rain took their toll on us and we didn't get much sleep but we enjoyed our night on the water anyhow. On Saturday there were 3 dives, one was a repeat of previous day but there is so much to see you miss a lot the first time. The 2nd was down to a large sunken car ferry, King Cruiser, which sank back in 1997 due to a misjudgement on the captain's part. The story goes that he did it for the insurance and is still locked up today! The ferry sits in around 30 metres of water but we only the 3rd and 4th decks are accessible. The 3rd deck is where the cars park and the 4th the captains cabin. It was our first wreck dive so pretty interesting, though the life on board was not as abundant to that on the natural reefs we'd dived previously. The last dive, our 7th over the 2 days, was at Koh Doc Mai. This is a large limestone rock sticking out of the sea with very little around it. It is an island but not habitable due to the steepness of the rock rising up to around 100 metres. It is similar to that under water in that the rock goes down steeply to the ocean floor at 30 metres. But on the wall there is a great deal to see with little cleaner shrimp, large moray eels, triggerfish, lionfish and many many more. We arrived back on Phuket at around 5pm and were quite exhausted so went to sleep very early after dinner. Yesterday was the first day we've had monsoon rains since arriving so we woke up late and spent most of the day indoors, watching the grand prix at a pub. We tried to find the Motogp but couldn't get it on any of the stations so had to settle for the F1. Today we did rent the Honda CBR 400's and had a fantastic time on them! We rode up from Phuket Island onto the mainland and visited Khao Lak, the closest launching point for visiting the Similan Islands. We popped into a diveshop and found out about trips out there for later this week, they sound really good so we may be relocating up there for a few days of more world class diving! We did a roundtrip on the CBR's on route 4 past Khao Lak then turned eastward onto the 401 and then down through Phang Nga and back to Phuket. Phang Nga is a very mountainous area surrounded by limestone peaks. It's also home to the Phang Nga National Park where there are several popular islands, one of which is called James Bond rock, made famous by 007 in The Man With The Golden Gun. We covered around 330 kilometres on the thoroughly enjoyable, lovely Thai roads. We will be spending tomorrow in Phuket before heading up to Khao Lak and the Similan Islands for a few days. Then it'll be a southward journey taking in Krabi and slowly making our way down to Malaysia. Itinerary of the past few days: Monday, 7 October Tuesday, 8 October Wednesday, 9 October Thursday, 10 October Friday, 11 October and Saturday, 12
October Monday, 13 October Sunday, 6 October 2002 We are currently in Koh Sumui,
southern Thailand. We We have spent the last 2 weeks
enjoying the wonderful We have been staying at Lucky
Mother, a well situated, On the night we arrived it was the
monthly full moon Our family holiday was one to
remember for many years They all stayed until Saturday,
28/9 and thoroughly For 2 days the girls (Karen, Jacqui
and Kelly) did The island has some lovely dirt
roads to offer and The bikes we hired were Honda XR
250's, superb for Other days were spent lazing by the
pool at Karen and Thank you to Karen, Damian, Kelly,
Jacqui and George After 5 days, the family were gone
and so the week In the past few days we've done a
bit of sailing, we Today we did a ride, one of the
few, when we went to Tomorrow we are, sadly, leaving Koh
Sumui to go down Itinerary of the past few days: Sunday, 22 September to Saturday, 5
October Sunday, 6 October
Saturday, 21 September 2002 We are currently in Koh Sumui,
southern Thailand. We It became a bit of a struggle to
reach Koh Sumui in On Sunday the 15th we continued our
journey north from We took a long boat (powered by no
less then a Toyota We spent one night in Chaing Saen
at JS Guesthouse but Monday the 16th was the beginning
of our southerly Chaing Mai is a beautiful city, the
2nd largest in On Tuesday 17th, the road out of
Chaing Mai toward Riding south along the Mae Nam Moei
River (Burma The best part of the road was from
Tha Song Yang to There were many Police checkpoints
along this road too We arrived in Mae Sot in the dark
and with a little Wednesday the 18th was another day
of mechanical We rode from Mae Sot through Tak,
Kamphaeng Phet, With the fuel troubles we were
having with Maggie we On Thursday the 19th Maggie
continued her cut outs and We managed to ride from Chainat
(motorway 340) to He showed us Charoen’s trophies
that he’d won over the Within 2 hours they had stripped
Maggies carburettors We managed to get to Choh Klao
hotel alongside the Mae After swapping the fuel pumps the
following morning, As we had already used the spare we
had carried from Alternative plans started to
develop and in the next The route from Cha Am to Surat
Thani was a main We got to Don Sak, the vehicle
ferry port to Koh Early on Saturday, we managed to
get onto the half We found the Lucky Mother
bungalows, as recommended by Koh Sumui is a favourite tourist
destination and so it Tomorrow we have a day to ourselves
before Gary’s They are here for 5 days for a
holiday and to bring We are looking forward to a good
family holiday, as Itinerary of the past few days: Sunday, 15 September Monday, 16 September Tuesday, 17 September Wednesday, 18 September Thursday, 19 September Friday, 20 September Saturday, 21 September Saturday, 14 September 2002 We are currently in Lampang,
northern Thailand. We After just over a week in Bangkok
to sort out a few Thailand has been having the worst
floods for many Early on Tuesday, 10 September, we
left Bangkok and The following day, Wednesday,
September 11 – there was Honda Africa Twins have a known
fuel pump defect (as Just before reaching Chaiyaphum, we
were witness to a The following day (Thursday, 12th)
we continued our We had to use a highway, number 2,
to cross the Nam We spent this night in Udon Thani,
a town that The northeast of Thailand is not
frequented by many On Friday, 13th, we continued up
towards the Laos Passing through Loei on route 201,
we then used route Today found us headed in a westerly
direction towards We stayed in Lampang, just south
east of Chaing Mai, Tomorrow we plan to head further up north to the Golden Triangle before we head back down south along the Burmese border to our destination of Koh Sumui by the 20th. Itinerary of the past few days: Tuesday, 10 September Wednesday, 11 September Thursday, 12 September Friday, 13 September Saturday, 14 September Saturday, 7
September 2002 Dom and Gary flew with Royal Nepal airlines to Bangkok early on Monday morning. The view of the Himalayas was short and a tad obscured by cloud but it's amazing that when you consider that you are at 29 000 feet and you can see snow capped peaks at that same level! Damian flew Thai air in the afternoon, he has since gone onto Perth to visit his sister, Rulan for a few weeks in Australia before coming back to Thailand for a week and then onto London. We stayed near the airport for 2
nights so as to be close to the customs/cargo area where we would have to
spend at least a day to get our bikes back to normal. It took us the whole
day of Tuesday to get our bikes out of the airport. The main problem is
not knowing where to start or in what order to proceed. It's quite a
frustrating process in that there are many touts outside the customs
office only too willing to help but we've heard stories of them requesting
100 pounds after they've done so! In order to avoid the confrontations we
decided to do things ourselves. We arrived before 9am and only managed to
ride our bikes away at 5pm. 1. First you have to split the airway bill if you have more than one bike shipped together. This is done at the Customer Service Centre, 1km south of the domestic terminal. The original document is provided (we only had a photocopy from our agent) and stapled to some other papers. 2. Then we went to the Personal Effects customs office. Here we had a tout help us but we soon ditched him when he asked for our passports outside at a dodgy looking table. But as he'd shown us where to go we found a customs officer, who willingly asked us to sit in his waiting room while he filled out some paperwork - about 5 pages for each bike! He asked for our passports and carnets. The carnets were only used for the engine and chassis number, they were not stamped at all. This took close to 3 hours sitting in his waiting room as he had to get his superior to approve his work. Among this paperwork was the Thai temporary vehicle import "white paper" (you sign to say that if you do not re-export the bike within the time stated you are liable to pay 500 000 Thai Baht - US $ 12 000 import fee!). 3. Then it's off to the Manifest Dept. Don't ask me what they do but there was some stamping and signing of our paperwork. 4. The final step is to pay the
airline for the clearance fee and service. This amounted to TB 545 (about
US $ 13) for each bike. You get 3 days free storage, which we hadn't
exceeded but it's about US $ 100 per day if you do store a bike there for
longer than that. 5. Once the customs official had re-approved all this paperwork, we headed for the warehouse located a further 1km south of the customs offices. You can catch a motorcycle taxi for about TB 10 (US $ 0.25) but have your wits about you! 6. Outside the warehouse we visited the office and presented our paperwork. This is again approved by their officials then passed onto someone who takes it into another office located inside the actual warehouse. Here it is delegated to one of the many forklift drivers cruising about the place. 7. In the meantime we handed in our passports in exchange for a security pass and entered the warehouse to find our long lost bikes! 8. Once they were delivered by forklift, to a nice spacious area within the warehouse, we started the uncrating process. The local workers there were really good and when we needed some extra help lifting the bikes up to assemble the front wheels they were only too keen. Eventually we rode our bikes out of the airport with smiles on our faces! The whole process is a longwinded one but with a little patience it's not too bad. The airport staff, whether working for the airline we used (Thai Air) or the government (customs) were very helpful and never once complained or held out their hands for money. After this taxing day we had an early night and then on Wednesday we moved into central Bangkok. The simple 20 something kilometres into the centre took us almost 3 hours to cover as the Expressways don't allow motorcycles on them. In order to find the equivalent roads taking you in takes some time, a lot of patience and a compass! We didn't have a decent map so it was guesswork but we eventually found a great place to stay with safe parking for the bikes. It's in northern Banglampoo close to the river next to the infamous Shanti Lodge, Sawadee Guest House. The next 2 days were spent looking for spares for the bikes. We caught a boat into town, a reliable "taxi" service used by most of the locals to go to work. We managed to find good quality Castrol oil and so took an afternoon to change our 10 000 km old oil. The next day was spent not looking for the actual parts but a reputable shop, which would cater for our bikes. The average bike here is a 125 cc so nothing like our monsters! . We needed tyres quite desperately as our wonderful Michelin T66's had eventually come to the end of their life. We found 2 shops, which were pretty good, but only 1 could provide us with what we required. A pretty informative website on bike shops in central Bangkok was all we used: http://www.geocities.com/bkkriders/shops It has a map of the area and also a description as to what the shop specializes in. The first shop we used, Riders Club
could only get some motorcross knobbly tyres but we decided to look
elsewhere. We found Dynamic Motors, also recommended on Horizons
Unlimited, but his service is shocking. He did eventually come through but
not without the (far too often) occasional nudge. Yong, the manager,
promised us we could come the following morning at 9 and the tyres could
be fitted. Only 1 set of tyres appeared after we had removed both wheels
from both bikes. We had to get the old tyres removed and new ones put on
at the car tyre shop adjacent, we had to catch a cab to the other side of
town to get the wheels balanced and we did all the labour! However, this
is Asia and we were glad to have new tyres provided in just one day. The
Michelins we were on, the reliable T66's were only being delivered in
November! So now we have new rubber: Bridgestone Trailwings on both bikes (TW47 front and TW48 back). They are a bit knobblier than the Michelins but with the monsoons and floods aplenty at this time of year, they may prove very handy! The front page of the daily Bangkok post is full of floods here and floods there so who knows what's in store for us up north should we decide to venture up there this week. Yesterday evening, after the bikes had been sorted out, we could finally be tourists again! We tried to find Patpong, the world renowned red light district of Bangkok but instead stumbled upon Soi Cowboy, a smaller version. We met Brian, a US expat, who took us to a show at one of the local go go bars. Here you feel a little uncomfortable for the first few minutes, but once you realize what's going on it's not so bad! The Thai girls that work in the bar literally throw themselves at you but once they realize you are only there to watch the show they are very friendly and are quite interesting to talk to. There are as many working girls as there are customers and half of them perform on stage while the others tend to the customers. This then changes every half hour. Today we visited Gary's distant relation, Lorraine out near Bagna on the road to Chomburi. This is an area where the expats live so is a completely refreshing change from the centre of Bangkok. It has huge houses, golf courses, wide-open spaces and we even spotted a monitor lizard soaking up the sun! It was a bit of a nightmare to navigate the Bangkok traffic but was worth the journey just to see how things operate on the roads. Once again the expressways were out of bounds but we managed, with Gary driving and Dom navigating on the back. It's very hot and humid here now and with the traffic lights taking between 5 and 10 mintues to change it was in the bikes best interest to switch off during stops to avoid overheating! We were treated to a lovely lunch and a swim and then we returned to the centre of Bangkok. Tomorrow we'll be full blow
tourists taking in some of the wonderful sights this place has to offer,
temples, grand palace, etc. We have also yet to see some Thai boxing so
may do that on Monday night before deciding what to do over the next 2
weeks (flooded northern Thailand or a sunny beach somewhere.difficult
decision!) Saturday , 31
August 2002 Our motorbikes were put to rest and we swapped them for mountain bikes to take in some of the hilly terrain around the area. There is a company called Raniban Mountain Bikes (bikes@raniban.com or +977 61 22219). They are not far from the center and they offer top quality bikes (Marin/Giant,etc.) at reasonable rates. They also had a guide who was great at finding the steepest and muddiest paths! We did 2 rides, one out to Sarangkot high above Pokhara where we had fantastic views, between the monsoon clouds, of the Annapurna range. The other ride was along the route where the Shangrila Airways plane crashed into the side of a mountain while we were staying in the area. We visited the site where 15 foreigners and 3 local people were killed. It was truly horrific and our sympathies go out to the families who have to endure this terrible tragedy. We did one motorbike ride out on the road to Baglung. It was raining and wet but after a few days of this kind of weather we decided that we had to get out and do something! A South African tourist, Greg joined us on a bike he hired locally whilst on holiday. The bike, a Yamaha XT250 was not in good condition with smooth tyres and no back brakes! Greg soon found out the hard way that this bike was not suitable as, while we were crossing a stream, he braked hard behind us and lost the front wheel coming down quite hard. The bike was ok but he fractured his ankle with an immediate swelling arising! We lifted him back to town while Damian rode the hired bike cautiously back. He had his leg cast in plaster Paris and still had to fit the bill for the damage! A warning to anyone hiring a bike when on holiday! We departed Pokhara late on Sunday, the 25th August hoping to reach Kathmandu before sunset, as it was only 200 kilometers. However, we were in for a bit of a surprise as, due to the monsoons playing havoc with the roads (landslides, mudslides, bridges being washed away, etc.) we were stopped soon after Mugling. A very recent landslide that was still in progress blocked the road ahead. Boulders the size of a small car were still tumbling down as we joined the locals spectating from a safe distance. It would be some time before a bulldozer would arrive and only when it was safe to do so, would he start to clear it. This could take anything up to 5 or 6 hours, so we decided to take the alternative route, firstly heading south from Mugling and then east parallel with the main road alongside the famous Royal Chitwan National Park. This route was good to begin with but once we started to head north again to join the main road we entered the mountainous Mahabharat range. The road was a mix of very windy, narrow stretches of mud, broken tar and gravel. The monsoons have really taken their toll on the road. We managed to stay upright the entire way but due to the fading light and mist it was a difficult task. Once we reached Daman it was a better road to Kathmandu and we eventually arrived, exhausted, in the tourist area of Tamel with the help of a local taxi at 11pm. We have now been in Kathmandu 6 days of which Wednesday was the biggest day for us! It was the day we sent our bikes from Kathmandu by aeroplane! Dom and Gary's bikes are going to Bangkok and Damian's to London. Damian has decided, for personal reasons, not to continue traveling by bike from Nepal so will be in Thailand for 1 month before flying back to the UK. His wife, Karen will be visiting for a week from 21 - 28 September and they'll fly back together. He crated his bike, which will sit in storage for one month in Kathmandu, before going to London. The crating process: Once you have driven the bike onto the base, about 5 inches longer than the bike and twice the width, the front wheel is taken out. There are 6 local guys holding it up off the ground and it's placed on its forks onto the base. Then it's strapped to the base using a ratchet type strap, one at the front and one at the back. The tyres are let down, the fuel drained, our panniers placed into position and tied down and the front wheel strapped to the side of the bike. Before any of this is done the local customs officials do a thorough inspection of everything that's going into the crate. Once all this is done, the carpenter puts the sides and top on the crate and away it goes into the warehouse. It is carried by the local guys, 4 each side and up and away! The paperwork is something that
takes some time to sort out and the agent is busy carrying your carnet and
passport back and forth while the bikes being packed. Ishowar was great throughout and very thorough about the whole process. We were a little nervous putting our bikes on a plane, but the process is quite simple and Ishowar made it that much easier with his professional attitude. He has done many bikes before and it showed in the way he handled things. Damians agent: Kishor Kishor is an extremely knowledgeable person and with 15 years experience in this business it shows! His managing director, Kiran Shrestha and Badri were all very helpful in the process of sending the bike to London. They are a large organization and are responsible for many of Kathmandu's exports. Damian met Kishor in Pokhara, as he spends some of his time there. After the bikes had been left safely in the hands of the airlines we headed back with a feeling of relief to the hotel. Over the last few days we've been out to dinner with the respective agents, who were only too keen to show us a bit of Kathmandu, the real stuff rather than the touristy stuff. Dom and Gary were treated to some traditional Nepalese food and then a men's only club where Nepalese women show off their talents! It's all pretty tame compared to the Western society we are used to! We have also hired mountain bikes and did some cycling today. Kiran from Universal was very kind in offering to take us up to Nagarkot in his van, saving our legs from an exhausting 30km, 800m ascent to the wonderful gem of Nepal. From here we managed to see most of the Himalayas and then we descended down some rugged offroad to Panuti and onto Patan. Tomorrow is our last day in Kathmandu before we fly out on Monday. Our bikes follow us on the afternoon flight so it'll be another day at the airport on Tuesday uncrating and assembling our bikes in Bangkok. We have not quite decided what to do over the next few weeks but we may either head north toward the Laos border in a bid to see some of Northern Thailand, or head south and spend the time on the beach before Karen, Damian's wife, and Kelly, Gary's sister arrive in Bangkok for a weeks visit. Our itinerary over the last few
days: Saturday, 17 August 2002 We are currently in Pokhara, Nepal. We have been on the road for 102 days and covered 12 933 miles (20 693 kilometers). Our pc has blue screened (no go Joe) so we will be unable to provide any photos till we get another in Bangkok in a few weeks. Please bear with us till then. Since leaving Mcleod Ganj in northern India, we went further north on the road to Leh but only got as far as Manali. It reminded us of the KKH in Pakistan as it's a very similar road winding it's way up the Beas river into the mountains. After Manali the tar ends and we attemped to do a roundabout trip across the east and down to Shimla but due to the rainy monsoon season the dirt roads stopped us in our tracks - a huge waterfall which we couldn't cross safely - so we turned back. This area also heads up into Kashmir so we decided not to venture up to Leh which was another option. We rode back down the same route the following day to Shimla where Gary had another puncture! We met a Danish cyclist who was doing Leh to Shimla over a few weeks and he got a puncture at the same time. He had hoped to reach Shimla that evening but after we left him we climbed a huge pass up to Shimla and we are sure it took him a few days to reach it! Nijababad was our next stop in India, a dirty, busy town bustling with the usual livestock and people. The humidity is not something to joke about in these regions and without aircon or an airfan little sleep if any can occur! We came to a decision that we'd rather enter Nepal via the Western border of Mahendranagar than spend another 2 weeks travelling south into India and then north towards Kathmandu. India was not doing us any good: the food is too spicy, the constant dice with death on the roads was getting us down and the rain/humidity don't help the situation. We spent 3 days at Corbett Tiger Reserve in Northern India, which boasts over 100 tigers, but, due to it being the monsoon season, it was very wet and we didn't manage to see the tiger we'd hoped. We did however use the time to relax and enjoy a different side to India. The jungle is very thick here and we did a 4 hour walk in the rain to see some of it. Unfortunately the view was obscured by low cloud, something we have become accustomed to now, but it didn't obscure the beauty of the park. The manager, Surinder Pal, was a really friendly chap and, as the only guests at the Corbett Ramganga resort (www.ramganga.com), he gave us 100% of his time. The food and staff were fantastic and the resort has a wonderful setting. We even played cricket against the staff but sadly lost 3 - 0 to some very good players! We departed Corbett in good spirits after 3 superb relaxing days. We only spent 11 days in India in total but were glad to enter Nepal after that. Nepal is a lot cleaner, the roads not as congested with people and livestock. The border crossing didn't take long and we stayed the night in the nearby town of Mahendranagar. We ran out of time to continue any further due to discovering another puncture (no. 3) to Gary's bike though this time it was front wheel. While Dam and Dom fixed it, Gary changed money, did the customs stuff and gathered info. for the journey ahead. The following day we rode into Bardia Natural Park, another wildlife sanctury with around 70 tiger, elephant, rhino, many types of deer and loads more including crocodiles! We stayed at Bardia Wildlife Paradise, a local resort run by a family. Krishna is the manager and Shanka, his brother, an experienced local wildlife guide. We spent 2 days here on our quest to see a tiger. We did a day walk with Shanka as our guide, into the jungle, quite taxing due to the heat and humidity but very enjoyable all the same. We managed to get within 10 metres of 2 rhino enjoying a local watering hole. They weren't impressed by our presence and soon moved off into the thick jungle. We saw all but the actual tiger on this day: We found the tracks, only a few hours old, the tiger faeces, teritorial markings, claw scratings on the trees. We even heard the monkeys sounding the alarm that one was in the area but it wasn't to be. After setting off at 7am we arrived back at camp around 6pm tired, hungry and hot. It was a great experience but now it was time to get on with life! We rode to Pokhara yesterday, a 600km trip which took most of the day but the roads in Nepal are fantastic. Once we turned off the main road from Butwal, the road became narrower as it wound its way along the river valleys upward toward the Himalayas. The views from the road are fantastic though we were running out of light so couldn't really stop to enjoy them! The last 35 kilometres we rode in the dark but it was not as bad as we had thought. We are going to stay in Pokhara at least 3 nights hoping to do some mountainbiking here. It appears though on a closer inspection that people cycle from here to Kathmandu. We may end up going to Kathmandu on our motorbikes and then flying back here. This way we can ride bicycles over some of the most beautiful off road the world has to offer. We have yet to find out if it's possible this time of year though...we'll chat to a local tour operator who was closed today. Our itinerary over the last few days: Tuesday, 6 August Wednesday, 7 August Thursday, 8 August Friday, 9 August Saturday, 10 August Sunday, 11 August Monday, 12 August Tuesday, 13 August Wednesday, 14 August Thursday, 15 August Friday, 16 August Saturday, 17 August Sunday, 4 August 2002 We are currently in Mcleod Ganj, northern India. We have now been on the road 91 days and covered 11 541 miles (18 467 kms). Our last 2 days in Pakistan were quite warm and humid as we headed south to Lahore before crossing over the controversial Wagah border that is currently closed to local people. We tried to use the new US $ 1 bn motorway but as motorbikes are banned (but remember that these are 125cc), the police were not interested in letting us on. We had read that other motorcycle travellers had used this fantastic, 6-lane highway but we were unfortunate to run into the highway police at the entrance. We should have made it from Islamabad to Lahore within 3 hours; instead we had a 100-mile detour back to the old road and so only reached Lahore at 5pm. We were going to try and get across the border that afternoon but as the border closes at 4pm we had no choice but to spend the night in Lahore. We found it to be quite an interesting city and we had dinner at the top Kabana Hotel, a well-known chain throughout Pakistan. On route from Lahore to the border
it was quite hectic with animals, people, taxis, bicycles, tuc tucs and
other road users almost blocking the road at times. It was not without
event as a cycle rickshaw rode side on into Damian, removing a few spokes
from the rickshaws It took us 4 hours to cross the border into India; strange as we were 3 of only 5 people crossing at the time! The officials on both the Pakistan and India side really took their time though everything was done in usual military style. India: Our entry into India was without any hassle and the road from Wahgah to Amritsar is lined with lush green farmlands for the first few kilometres. Amritsar is very populated and so it took us a while to find a suitable hotel to house the bikes. We were eventually led, by a friendly cycle rickshaw rider, to a hotel with a courtyard, not far from the Golden Temple. Once we had settled in we visited the Golden Temple, a Budda shrine built in 16th century that occupies a large area in the centre of the old town. The highlight in the centre is the Hari Mandir, a gold-plated, 2-storey marble temple. The inside of this huge enclosure houses the Pool of Nectar, the size of 2 Olympic swimming pools, where the Sikh pilgrims religiously bathe themselves. We followed the busy procession through to the Hari Mandir and were amazed to see how much money was being put into the tithe box. These people are not wealthy by any means but the notes could not be put into the box quick enough! The following day we headed up north toward the Himalaya region leaving Punjab and entering Himachal Pradesh province. The monsoons must have hit this region while we were trying to navigate our way north; the road was hardly visible at times, covered in a foot of water! We had been hearing of the drought that Western India had been suffering but this was surely the day the droughts ended! The rivers were flowing strongly but they didn't pose us too many problems. There were times that their overflow covered the potholes but we managed to survive. We rode up to Pathankot before turning east to Dharamsala and further up the climb to Mcleod Ganj. As well as having a strong Tibetan culture, Mcleod Ganj is the official home of the Dalai Lama. There are many maroon-robed monks around and it certainly doesn't feel like we are in India! It is also a favourite area among travellers, many seem to have been left here since the 60's! A real hippie paradise! We have met a few interesting people and among them a Swiss couple travelling around the world on a Triumph Tiger, Marcel and Flavia Wolf (http://www.tiger-club.ch/weltreise) They have been on the road for 14 months now and covered our route including Scandinavia and the Eastern block. They are following a similar route to us down to Australia but will spend a lot more time than us in each country. After that they will be doing South and North America before considering what to do after that. Their entire trip should last around 4 years, our little adventure seems nothing in comparison! If you wish to contact them you can email them on: m-f.wolf@gmx.net We have had a few days here to soak up the laid back Tibetan atmosphere but we'll probably head on our way tomorrow to a similar area north of here, Manali. Itinerary of the last few days: Thursday, 1 August Friday, 2 August Saturday, 3 August Sunday 4 and Monday 5 August, no travelling. Wednesday, 31 July 2002 We are currently in Islamabad, Pakistan. We have now been on the road 85 days and covered 11 047 miles (17 675 kms). We are back in Islamabad after spending a total of 9 days around the Karakoram Highway (KKH) area. Northern Pakistan is a tourists dream come true. Hiking, white water rafting, mountain biking, polo, crystal clear lakes, snowcapped mountains all around, etc. It's such a pity we didn't see any tourists on our route, as there are clearly no problems here. Many people have stayed away from this beautiful region because of the "problems" close to this area (Afghanistan and Kashmir) but we were only greeted with smiles and hospitality We continued our trek from Chitral (last update) eastward towards Gilgit over the Shandur pass (3800m) but as the road quality deteriorated, we slowed. It was a full days ride from 5am till 6pm and we only managed to get to Phandar, 130 miles from Gilgit. The first 50 miles was good tar road but after that it was gravel, rock, sand, dust and more gravel! It took its toll on us as we got our first puncture (Gary) and Damian removing a pannier after contacting a rock, bringing him down. The rocky bed offers 2 tracks made by the jeeps, the left tight against the rockface with little room for the left pannier and the right track sometimes a few centimetres away from a 50m sheer drop to the river below. The aluminium Touratech (www.touratech.de) panniers are made for this type of terrain and after some panel beating, no shortage of rocks about to use, we continued on. After a good nights rest in a simple guesthouse in Phandur, we continued the rocky, dusty trek to Gilgit. The roads in these areas are in constant repair. There were many areas where the road has had to be reconstructed over a different route due to the landslides. The roads are quite busy with local farmers using their tractors, cows and goats dotted along the route and local jeeps ferrying people about. So it's not just the road quality that you have to pay attention to: you come round a corner, concentrating 110 % to keep you front wheel in the rocky rut, and the road comes to an end, or there's a cow in your path, or a tractor, or a Caterpillar reconstructing the road. It's these things that demand your attention in order for you to stay upright! Oh and then don't forget it's a 50m-drop down a cliff to the river… Anyhow we survived this "wee" challenge and reached Gilgit in one piece. The bikes didn't seem to bat an eyelid at the conditions (covered in dust, chains making all sorts of strange noises, being run at redline temperatures for most of the 2 days); they came through with flying colours, again! The last 40 miles before Gilgit is good tar so we enjoyed being back on the black stuff again! At Gilgit we joined the official Karakoram Highway (KKH) for the first time. Heading north for the Chinese border we didn't seem to come across many petrol stations so we rode up to Sost, 90km from the actual border but officially the last immigration post on the Pakistan side. Still we had not seen any fuel so asked where the nearest petrol station was and found out that the one 5km north of Sost had run out of petrol. So we had to backtrack 100 kilometres down to Hunza to get fuel. This is known as one of the best places to ride a bike so it was a pleasure to ride the road over again, then back up to Passu for the night. We just managed to fill all 3 bikes before the last of the petrol in Hunza ran out: if we'd been 5 minutes later we might not have been so fortunate to visit the top of the KKH! In Passu we stayed at Shisper View Hotel; a simple, friendly guesthouse. The manager, Sultan (www.twinadventurers.com/photos/Sultan.jpeg) , is a really friendly, hospitable chap and entertained us with his in depth knowledge of the area. His cousin, Abdul Kasim (shimshal20022002@yahoo.com) is a local tour guide and he gave us some useful information about the Shimshal region. Unfortunately the area has been hit by the lack of tourists this year and he, along with most of the tour operators in this region, has to seek other work to substitute their income. Email him if you are a keen hiker as there are some fantastic hiking trails of which he will be only too keen to provide information about. We rode up to the top of the
Khunjerab pass to the border of China the following day. The mildly cool
conditions in Sost turned to snow and sleet at the top and we had all our
winter riding gear on, something we have not had to take out since we left
Austria months ago! It was a brief visit to the top due to the freezing conditions, at least we thought it was cold: we were amazed to see the locals building a border post barefoot at the top! We rode back down to Passu and stayed another night at Shisper View Hotel so that we could walk up to the Shisper Glacier close by. Although it appeared close to us from the KKH, the glacier took us over an hour to reach. We spent an hour walking around on the magnificent piece of solid ice. It certainly is an amazing feat to come face to face with this ice age phenomenon. On the way down, boys will be boys; we found a huge cliff face off which to roll large rocks down into the river below. The sound of a 50kg rock bounding its way down the mountainside certainly makes you feel tiny! We did hear and see some "natural" erosion of the glacier heating up and shedding some large ice blocks. After Passu, the glacier and the wonderful Karakoram mountain range we started our journey south back toward Islamabad. We stopped in Gilgit to have a bite to eat, fill up petrol and change some money. We stopped off at Younas hotel and restaurant, just off the KKH on the road into Gilgit across the road from the Shell service station. The friendly English speaking owner, Khan Yasin Mohammad, was only too pleased to help us, as his tourist season has been almost non-existent up till now. If anyone wants to visit this area (he will tailor a holiday for you whatever your interest - sport, hiking, jeep expeditions, etc.) you can send him a letter for information: Khan Yasin Mohammad Telephones are not that reliable but there is a contact number: (Pakistan code) (Gilgit code) 55681 and fax is 53776. After lunch at Younas we got to Dasu by sunset and stayed at Kyber Lodge Hotel on the river Indus. This place has a good shop if you want to buy local guidebooks, T-shirts, posters, etc. The KKH on this stretch is very demanding and requires a lot of concentration, as the effort to take this road over this area is immense. The road winds its way in and out of the rock face only allowing you to do around 35 mph at best. The road also gets busier the further south you go with local trucks and cars using the road frequently. The next day this winding road continued, like it would never end! It certainly is beautiful but takes a lot out of you so be warned, take it easy and enjoy it rather than try to rush it. We then made it to Islamabad via Abbottabad and the shortcut to Murree. The road from Abbottabad to Murree deserves a mention as it climbs its way high up into the clouds! It is a massive pass that didn't even register on our maps but it certainly is beautiful! The KKH head south from Abbottabad over the Salhad pass but we took the shorter route via Murree. It is a good road though can be quite busy with local tourists and trucks alike. Today we are in Islamabad, Dom has got his shiny new screen so fitted it to the bike ready to attack those Indian roads with a vengence! Tomorrow we will be heading to Lahore where we'll enter India the following day. Itinerary of the last few days: Thursday, 25 July Friday, 26 July Saturday, 27 July Sunday, 28 July Monday, 29 July Tuesday, 30 July Wednesday, 24 July 2002 We are currently in Chitral, Northern Pakistan. We have now been on the road 79 days and covered 9935 miles (15 900 kms). Since leaving Islamabad a few days ago, we have started our ascent up the Hindu Kush Mountains before we head east toward the Karakoram mountain range (and the Karakoram Highway - KKH) toward the Chinese border. We rode out of Islamabad on the road to Peshawar (close to the Afghanistan border) before turning north on the road up to Chitral. The quality of the road is not too bad but there are many potholes and a lot of vehicles using this road. However, once we had turned off the "main" road it became a lot quieter. We reached Dir by 6pm and spent the night there. Dir is a small village set up on the slopes of a mountain overlooking the fertile valley below. Here we found some beautifully hand crafted knives, just one of the many items made to precision by the talented artisans this area has to offer. Excellent quality handmade pine furniture and steelwork seem to be some of the mainstream industries here, along with farming. After Dir we headed further up the road over the Lowarai pass, an ascent up to 3100 metres over some rugged terrain. There is quite a bit of traffic using this route; HIACE taxi's ferrying people, lorries transporting goods and jeeps taking tourists up to the mountains. The Mastuj River winds its way down the valley and the road snakes its way up alongside it. There are many rock falls due to the heavy rain that falls during summer. We were lucky not to come across any blocked sections but are told to expect some further up this road. It took us 5 hours over only 95 miles to reach Chitral, another village similar to Dir but much larger. It has an airport that is usually busy with tourists in summer. Since September 11 though, not many tourists have ventured out here this year. We are some of the few and so we have been treated to some great hospitality that would normally be shared out to hundreds! It is compulsory for foreigners visiting these remote areas to register at the local police station. On our visit this morning we found out just how badly September 11 and the Afghan war has affected the tourism in the region. Local tour operators who would normally be booked out at this time of the year are sitting around with little to do, and worse little money coming in! We had a look at the figures of years past (displayed on a wall chart) and there are usually 1000 people who visit here in summer. This year it is probably not going to top 100! Tomorrow we head up toward Gilgit, though we will spend at least one night on the way there as it's too far to do in one day. We have been told by local sources that Phundar is a great place to spend some time: trout fishing and hiking being what most tourists usually spend time doing there. The "road" officially ends just north of Chitral so we will be doing the 250 kilometres or so to Gilgit over nothing but jeep tracks. There is no tar from here onward and so it may be a few days before we reach Gilgit. The Shandur pass at an altitude of 3800 metres has to be crossed so we are in for some interesting riding over the next few days!
Monday, 22 July Tuesday, 23 July Sunday, 21 July 2002 We are currently in Islamabad, Pakistan. We have now been on the road 76 days and covered 9625 miles (15 400 kms). Since leaving Quetta on Wednesday,
we have had a few challenging days on the bike. This route is relatively quiet and a good road from Quetta to Zhob. We had to cross a number of sections where the tar ends and there is a dirt section to the next bit of tar but it is usually not bad. From Zhob however, things changed as the weather played a part in the terrain. This region is a vast, mountainous desert and the riverbeds are frequent but we hadn't seen any with water flowing before leaving Zhob. But when the clouds open things change drastically. Almost every 5kms the riverbeds are very active with brown, muddy water streaming down the shortest route. Some of them are small and easily negotiated but others are knee high. It took us about 3 hours to cover the first 50 kilometres outside Zhob and eventually there was a river we couldn't cross and it would be dark soon. We camped close to the river, hoping that by morning it would have subsided and we could easily get across it. By morning it had, and we continued on our route to Dera Ismail Khan. After crossing the same river 3 times in the first 10 kilometres, an early morning wake up and shake up, we rode out of the most dramatic gorge. There were steep overhanging cliffs and mostly in the shadow at that time of the morning, very scenic. The "surprise" was yet to come, however, as the tar ended only a few kilometres into the days ride. This time the gravel, sand, mud and river sections were more demanding. It was also heating up at around 30 degrees by 9am and, as the riding became more physical through riverbeds, mud and sand, we began to feel quite fatigued. In 4 hours we covered just 60 kilometres with the odd topple every so often. Dom had one spectacular mudslide where he completely detached a pannier and flew through his front screen, removing it entirely. A new one is on its way from London via Karen and DHL so hopefully his bike will be "mended" soon. It's not comfortable riding at 100 km/h without a shield from the wind! After that taxing day we reached Dera Ismail Khan, nothing more than an Oasis town alongside the Indus River. It is very warm here with the mercury reaching the high 40's during the day. The next day was a nice break from the previous as we headed up north to Islamabad. The map suggested close to 600 kilometres as we departed at sunrise, but it was closer to 500 by the time we arrived by 3pm. Islamabad almost stands out of Pakistan as it is not like any of the towns we have visited. Instead of there being a busy city centre, everything is spread out into grids with each little community having it's own set of shops, restaurants and hotels. It's actually quite a nice break from the poverty stricken areas we have encountered up till now. There don't appear to be any main routes passing through it, where passing trucks push their thick diesel pollution into the atmosphere. It is a quiet, almost rural "town" with what appears to be not much going on. It is also amazingly "cool" in the middle of summer, humid but not the 40 degrees we have almost become accustomed to over the last week. Tomorrow we head up to the Karakoram Highway (KKH), one of the worlds engineering wonders, a road built to join Pakistan with China. It starts just outside Islamabad and runs for over 1000 kilometres gaining nearly 4000 metres in altitude. It is carved out into the cliffs beside the Indus and Hunza rivers. Landslides and rock falls are frequent as a result of the earth tremors in the region. The road is constantly rebuilt and so it's course changes almost on a daily basis. It is what many motorcyclists and cyclists alike travel from far and wide to come and ride. If you come to Pakistan and don't do the KKH then you are missing out on a part of Pakistan you will regret for a lifetime! Itinerary of the last few days: Wednesday, 18 July Thursday, 19 July Friday, 20 July Wednesday, 17 July 2002 We are currently in Quetta, southern Pakistan. We have now been on the road 71 days and covered 8957 miles (14 331 kms). We spent a day in Bam, an oasis
town close to the Iran/Pakistan border and usually the first (those On Monday we left early to get
across into Pakistan at the border of Mirjaveh. The Lonely Planet states
that the border is open from 7am to 8pm so we thought we'd get across in
the afternoon, stay in Taftan just across the border and this would allow
us a full day on the road without the hassle of a border crossing then
trying to get to Quetta. However, perhaps just in summer - we don't know,
the border on the Pakistan side is closed from 1pm till 4pm (immigration)
and customs from 4pm till 6pm. It took us an hour to get through the Iran
side and we arrived at 1:30pm on the Pakistan side to find that they were
asleep for "lunch". We made good use of the time and changed
some money, there are quite a few At 4pm the officials were awake and working again so we breezed through immigration. Heading onto Customs for the final hurdle we were told that they had just gone off duty and would be back at 6pm! Anyway another 2 hour wait and finally we were able to check into the only hotel, the run down PTDC, and get some "rest". This hotel is government owned so right next door to the customs office. It is expensive at more than US $ 10 each and there was no electricity or running water! Taftan is not more than a squatter camp of a town in the middle of the desert! We do not recommend doing the same thing if you are doing this route. It would probably be better to stay the other side of the border, perhaps in Zehadan or closer if you can. We met a Swiss couple that did this and got through the border at 7am in 2 hours with no such problems. Pakistan Quetta is another milestone in our trip, we spoke about this town many years ago and finally we are here. It's a long, hard struggle to reach it from Iran due to the vast desert that has to be crossed. Most people do the 650 km sandy haul in 2 days but we decided to put ourselves and the bikes to the test and do it in one. It's the best part of 50 degrees centigrade in places now in mid summer. It was probably the hardest thing we have done on a motorbike and took us from 6am to 6pm to complete. It was also the longest day we have had on the bike so far at 401 miles. The road is single track from Dalbandin, about half way and so when trucks or busses are coming the other way you have to get off the tar as the biggest vehicle takes preference! The drivers are not aggressive and do slow right down for you, flash lights and wave a friendly greeting. We met a few Pakistan truckers and were amazed at the pride they take in their vehicles. They decorate them like Christmas trees with jingling chains and some intricately painted art on every square inch of metal. There are a number of police check points along the way, perhaps 10, but we were only asked to stop 3 times for passport checks. The officials are very friendly and it appears there are no problems in this area. We eventually got our weary selves to the Marina hotel at about 7pm. They insisted on us driving our bikes through the front door and putting the bikes into the courtyard within the hotel complex. This was not as easy as they made out! Riding a 250kg motorbike up 3 steps and through a normal door takes a little skill! They did provide a door laid over the steps that we could ride up so it proved to be a little easier than first thought. We have noticed a change in the Pakistan people compared to the Iranians. Although they gather around you when you stop, they seem more interested in you than the bike. If you move away from the bike, rather than stay with the bike and ogle at it, they will move to where you are going. Today we decided to have a day off as we've been on the move for the last 5 days without a break, covering 2500 kilometres. There is some maintenance to be done on the bikes with oil and tyre pressure checks as well as changing of chain and sprockets of Gary's bike. Tomorrow we continue north up toward Islamabad, parallel to the Afghanistan border. It is probably a good 2 days before we reach Islamabad where we are looking forward to the beginning of the Karakoram Highway (KKH), 1600 km of breathtaking road climbing it's way up to the Karakoram mountain range. We are told this area has the most roads above 4000m in the world and thus it's a motor bikers paradise! Itinerary of the last few days: Sunday, 14 July Monday, 15 July Tuesday, 16 July (longest day on
the bikes so far) The
Saturday, 14 July 2002 We are currently in Kermãn, south-eastern Iran. We have now been on the road 68 days and covered 8066 miles (12 906 kms). In the past 2 days we have covered 675 miles (1080 kms). Due to our visa problems we are moving quite quickly to get to Pakistan before our transit visa expires in 2 days time (16 July). We got up at 5am and rode south all day from Esfahan to Shiraz where we arrived at sunset. We had planned to be at our destination at just after lunchtime to avoid being on the road in the heat of the day, which is between 2pm and 6pm when it's like an oven! However, a detour over some mountains due to roadwork led us to a police check that took up an hour's precious time. Once we had left that behind we pressed on but were again stopped by the police in the town of Yasuj. Here the police didn't seem to appear to know what they were doing? We were asked for our passports and then asked to follow an officer, who had our passports, to the police station. At the station another officer took our passports and asked us to follow him. This went on for some time before we were taken to a unit on the outskirts of town and asked to wait again. This process of following police cars around and waiting for goodness knows what, took up the best part of 3 hours. To add to the problem, there were no English speakers who could tell us what we were being held for. Eventually we tried to explain that our visas were limited and that we had to be in out of Iran and enter Pakistan within 3 days. We still had a long distance to cover in order to make it in time and their "game" was not doing us any favours! They agreed to let us go but took details of our passports and we carried on, but in the heat of the day, something we had planned for by getting up at 5am!! On Saturday we got up even earlier, at 4:30am, and rode to Kermãn. We weren't stopped at any police checks and arrived at 3pm, avoiding the heat as planned. The Iranian drivers kept us on our toes with their erratic driving. There were a few close calls including a bus pushing us off the road but we managed to keep our cool. We crossed the Daryãche-e Bakhtegan desert from Shiraz to Sirjan, which took us 2 hours, riding at 100km per hour so you can appreciate how big it is. In places it felt like a sauna and the bikes heating up in the mid summer conditions but not showing any signs of fatigue at all. It certainly is a pleasure to ride these machines in such conditions as now we begin to appreciate just how robust and hardy they are. Since entering Iran 8 days ago we have covered 1722 miles (2755 kms), 2 of those days have not included any riding! It has been tough going but quite enjoyable all the same, we are certainly learning things about how the body copes under such conditions: little sleep/food, heat in excess of 40 degrees and the Iranian drivers making sure you have to concentrate 110% while on the bike. Tomorrow we have an easy day from Kermãn to Bam, which is around 200kms. We'll spend tomorrow doing the touristy things around Bam as it will be our last day in Iran before heading for Taftan and Pakistan the following day. Itinerary of the last few days: Friday, 12 July Saturday, 12 July Thursday, 11 July 2002 We are currently in Esfahan, central Iran. We entered Iran on Saturday 6 July so have been here for almost a week now. We have been on the road 66 days and covered 7391 miles (11 826 kms). After leaving Dogubeyazit, the last town of Eastern Turkey, we entered Iran at the border of Bazargan. There were few hiccups and we were through the border within 2 hours. We noticed an almost immediate change upon entering Iran. The people are extremely friendly to tourists and make you feel at home at once! They are not trying to sell you anything and they do not want anything from you, they simply want to speak to you and learn about where you are from and what you are doing in their country. We rode east to reach Tabriz, one of Iran's biggest cities, a good days ride from the border. Here we spent two nights hoping to extend our 5-day transit visa for at least 5 days, hopefully a few weeks. Within a few hours of arriving in Tabriz, we had made a few friends. Hassan, Majid, Mojtaba and Salman invited us to join them for dinner on the second night. We obliged and, 6 up in a traditional Iranian Taxi, the Paykan, we headed out for the night. They refused when we tried to pay for anything and we had Iranian pizza followed by drinks in the park close by. The hospitality is overwhelming when you consider how little these people have. Unemployment is very high and many people live on the breadline, yet they are so friendly! After leaving Tabriz, with no visa extension, we decided to try Tehran on the advice of the foreign affairs officials in Tabriz. En route to Tehran we spent a day at Gazvin, a bustling little town close to the mountains. The next day we did a day trip up to Alamut, a small village up in the mountains. The roads are awesome for a motorbike, twisting their way up over the pass and down into the valley in which Alamut lies. Here we visited the ruins of the 11th century Castle of the Assassins, set high up on the mountain overlooking Alamut. The castle is aptly named because Hasan Sabbah, Ismaili cult founder, doped candidates who wished to join him against the then rulers of Iran. They were then sent on missions to wipe out the opposition. We were treated to a royal visit as some 8 local historians joined us up to the summit where the ruins now remain. Afterwards we were invited in for tea and cherries, one of the many fruits produced in the summer by the village below. The region has only 3 months of summer when they harvest their abundance of fruit (apricots, cherries, rice, peaches, etc) and the population swells to some 5000. In the harsh winter this area is almost uninhabited, with only 200 people remaining in the village. The rest seek work in other parts of the country, mostly in Tehran. A 6am start the next day saw us reach Tehran at 9am and we eventually found the foreign office, after negotiating the Tehran rush hour traffic that reminded us of being in an arcade game! Lanes are not really adhered to in Iran; taxis, small motorbikes and local cars simply change lanes at will, finding the most aerodynamic way forward whatever the direction! We certainly had to have our wits about us on the motorway, as a car moving 3 lanes in about as many seconds is not uncommon! After almost 3 hours of pleading unsuccessfully for a visa extension with the government officials at the foreign office, we decided to get out of Tehran. Tehran to Esfahan is usually a good days ride at some 500 kms, but as we departed at noon, it was a long day for us. There is little in between Tehran and Esfahan so we rode non-stop through the heat of the day to reach Esfahan after sunset. This has been our longest day on the bikes so far, 400 miles (640 kms), and probably one of the most taxing too! But, as our 5 day transit visa was about to come to an end the following day, we had to no option but to try one last time in Esfahan to extend it or face the unknown at the frequent police road blocks. This whole visa saga has left a sour taste in our mouths and so here's a word of advice on anyone hoping to visit Iran: Get a 30-day tourist visa!! We have spent a day in Esfahan, half a day extending our visa at the (only!?) helpful foreign office and the other half sightseeing. Esfahan used to be the capital of Iran years ago and there are many palaces and monuments showing this, which are well worth a visit. Unfortunately our time has been cut short in Iran due to our visa complications. We had hoped to spend close to a month here but now we are forced to leave within 10 days. The people are so friendly, it is extremely cheap (petrol is 6 US cents per litre) and there is much to do and see but it's not to be for us. Tomorrow we will head south to Shiraz, where we'll spend a day, then we move east to Kerman, Bam and Pakistan over the border within the next 5 days. It has been enlightening to be able to visit Iran as we had heard so much about it. The roads are extremely good and the scenery picturesque. It is one of the few countries with such a variation in climate: In the north toward the Caspian Sea, it is warm in summer but very cold in winter. Here there are fertile valleys, where export quality fruit is grown and the Alborz Mountains are snow-capped throughout summer. Much of Eastern Iran is uninhabited due to the deserts, which take up most of its countryside. Tehran, in the centre, is the capital with 12 million people. In the south the Persian Gulf offers a coastal climate and has ports busy ferrying oil out to much of the world. Itinerary of the last few days: Saturday, 6 July Sunday, 7 July Monday, 8 July Tuesday, 9 July Wednesday, 10 July Friday, 5 July 2002 We are currently in Dogubeyazit, staying at Murat Pension. Dogubeyazit is the last town before Iran and we had planned to leave early this morning for the border. However, due to Dom having his credit card cancelled for some unknown reason and Gary being a bit sick, we will go to Iran tomorrow morning. We have now been on the road 60 days and covered 6233 miles (9973 kms). After leaving Tatvan on Lake Van, we rode up to the top of Nemrut Dagi, another similar named 2500m volcano to the one we saw a few days ago, that towers over Lake Van covered in snow. This region is really mountainous and from the top you can see many snow capped mountains all around the lake. We found a crystal clear, volcanic lake up in the huge crater of Nemrut and camped under the stars for the night. It was quite cold up on the mountain but extremely beautiful. We must have eaten something suspect over the last 2 days as Dom and Gary have had some tummy troubles but nothing to stop the hardy type! Yesterday we rode up from Tatvan to Dogubeyazit, mostly alongside Lake Van. The roads were great, lovely tar with very few potholes and we were able to sit at a comfortable 100km per hour most of the way. On approach to Dogubeyazit, Mount Arrarat towers up into the clouds above the dwarfed town. It is largest mountain in Turkey at a staggering 5137m. We met a Swiss couple from Bern staying at Murat who are doing a similar route to us by camper van. They will also be entering Iran tomorrow but their itinerary is somewhat different to ours, as they'll be heading up north to the Caspian Sea within a few days.
Wednesday, 3 July Thursday, 4 July Friday, 5 July
Tuesday, 2 July 2002 We are currently in Tatvan, camping alongside Lake Van in Eastern Turkey. We have made up a few days by riding all day over the past few days so now have a few days on hand to catch up with servicing the bikes and visiting the sites around Lake Van before heading for the border of Dogbayzit later in the week to enter Iran. We have now been on the road 57 days and covered 5981 miles (9570 kms). We spent 2 days in the Cappadocia
region and enjoyed the history the region has to offer. We stayed in Göreme
and hiked through the Rose and Dick valleys. The area was apparently used
in the filming of Star Wars due to its alien rock formation appearance.
The area has had numerous volcanic eruptions to form what are now hundreds
of mushroom shapes of rock. There are some tall, some short, some fat and
some thin. The region is well known for the ancient Christian churches and
underground dwellings that people travel from far and wide to see. Many
years ago when the Arabs forbade Christianity, Christians were persecuted
and so they took their religion underground. There are 2 cities built
underground into the lava around 35 metres deep. There are also many
churches built into the mushroom like rock. The Christians painted the
most exquisite emblems of Christ among others. Most of the faces on these
were destroyed by the Arabs but for a few. After leaving Cappadocia, we spent
the longest day on the bikes so far. We covered close on 600km to reach
Nemrut Dagi. We were up at 6am to arrive at 6pm halfway up this 2500m
mountain. The temperatures are well into the 30's now and with the tar
heating up the air, probably closer to the 40's out on the road! Our route
took us through some lovely authentic Turkish towns of Pinarbasi,
Karamanaras and Golbasi, though we didn't have much time to stop and
appreciate them. Nemrut Dagi is well known for the
huge statues that were carved out of limestone and erected at the top of
this great mountain. However, an earthquake had the upper hand and a few
years ago the statues were damaged, causing the heads and various other
parts to fall onto the floor. They are currently trying to resurrect these
to restore them to their original state. The heads alone are around 2m in
height and must weigh in excess of 300 kilograms. After the early start watching the
sunrise we rode all day to reach Tatvan on Lake Van. This lake is huge and
reminds us of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe due to its size. Today is service day for the bikes as we have covered almost 10 000km since leaving London 2 months ago. We will be changing the oil and oil filters and cleaning the robust K&N filters that we have been sponsored. We met Joseph Pichler and his wife,
Renata, at the campsite in Tatvan. He is an extremely well travelled
individual with not much in the world he hasn't seen by motorbike. He was
very interesting to chat to and gave us a lot of advice for our trip
regarding Iran and India as well as general advice on where to go and what
to see. We will visit Nemrut Dagi (another one!) today. It is alongside Lake Van where there is a hot spring as well as some other interesting things of an historical nature. From there we will make our way over to the Iranian border of Dogbayzit. Itinerary of the last few days: Saturday 29 June Sunday 30 June Monday 1 July Friday, 28 June 2002 We are currently visiting the Cappadocia region and staying in Göreme in central Turkey. Since leaving Kusadasi we have followed the picturesque coastline until turning inland this morning. We have now been on the road 53 days and covered 5316 miles (8506 kms). After leaving Kusadasi we visited Bodrum, where Damian had some news that he had to return to London to sort out some paper work. Damian spent 6 days back in London, though it took him the best part of 2 days to fly back to London then back to Bodrum. Dominic and Gary, after doing a scuba dive with Balci diving in Kusadasi, got quite sick and had to spend a few days in bed to recover from the flu like symptoms they had. We can only put this down to poor hygiene on the part of the scuba diving company. Anyhow Damian was back in London and Dom and Gary were in bed so not all was lost. A bit of sightseeing was done in and around the Bodrum peninsula. Dom and Gary did a boat trip for a day and rode around the peninsula for a day on the bikes. Once Damian arrived back we pushed on to Fethiye, which is about 250km further down the lovely Turkish coast. This was similar to Bodrum in that it's purely a boating paradise with little room for beach activities. Our trip has had some influence from the World Cup in that we have at least something to talk to the locals about. Turkey reached the semi finals, the best ever performance by them in the World Cup. The Turkish flags have never been so prominent, they can be seen on t-shirts, car windows, restaurants, even the motorcyclists have them attached to their bikes! Our Turkish is coming along well and we can now greet, ask how the person is, say thank you as well as goodbye and a few other phrases we have learnt along the way. Here is our short Turkish phrase book (spelt as spoken - we have yet to learn Turkish symbols!) Merhaba - Hello; And last but not least (though we have not used it often enough…) Ruyalaramin Kadinusm - You are the girl of my dreams! We seem to pick up phrases almost daily and the locals are impressed when we speak to them in their own language. Whilst in Fethiye we did an off
road daytrip up Baba Dagi, a mountain almost 2000 metres above sea level.
It is a paradise for Para gliders as the view it offers is breathtaking.
We could count more than 30 thrill seekers in the sky after watching them
launch themselves off the almost sheer drop down to the Mediterranean. The
mountain overlooks Ouldeniz, a beach only a postcard can depict -
absolutely fantastic! The sea is turquoise and the beach like one from the
Caribbean. Pushing on along the coast we travelled past Antalya, touristy Manavgat and Alanya staying close to Anamur last night. The roads along the coast are quite hard work but really enjoyable. They remind us again of South Africa as they are built into the cliffs like Chapman's Peak close to Cape Town. They did take their toll on our concentration though, as they wind their way in and out with nothing but the sea down below, sapping the energy and requiring a few caffeine stops to keep us going. Today we covered more than 500km,
our longest day so far, to reach Göreme in the heart of Cappadocia. With
a 6am start to counteract the heat, we drove down the coast almost to
Adana before turning inland to reach our destination at 6pm. Some say this
is a holiday but days like this are damn hard work - the enjoyable type
though!! Today things seemed to have changed quite a bit on a few fronts: Weather: The humid coastal temperatures of the past few weeks are now cool and cloudy conditions with snow capped mountains close by; People: The beaches with local and
foreign tourists have changed to less wealthy, rural inhabitants. It's not
uncommon to see a family of 4 on a moped! Vegetation: The bananas, tomatoes,
cherries, olives that thrive in the humid coastal conditions have now
changed to maize and potatoes. We hope to visit the Derinkulu underground city tomorrow among the other touristy things this exquisite area has to offer before moving further east on Sunday via Lake Van. Itinerary of the last few days: Monday 17 June Tuesday 18 - Sunday 23 June Monday 24 June Tuesday 25 June Wednesday 26 June Thursday 27 June Friday 28 June
Monday 24 June - Turkey Following Karen's departure last Sunday we spent one more night in Kusadasi. On Monday we rode the 130km to Bodrum and arrived around lunchtime. Dom and Gary have been quite ill with a throat infection that we think has something to do with the diving they both did in Kusadasi. They've been recovering for a few days while Damian flew back to London on Tuesday to sort out some official business. Dom and Gary went on boat trip to one of the Turkish islands and have been riding around the area on their bikes. Damian rejoined the group on Sunday
night in Bodrum and they rode to Fethiye on Monday. The area is very
mountainous with snow on the tops on the mountains. It's quite a change
from the terrain of the last few weeks.
We have just spent a week on the beach at Kusadasi, a coastal resort about 100km south of Izmir on Turkeys' west coast. We have now been on the road 41 days and covered 4220 miles (6752 kms) and are currently staying in Kusadasi, a coastal resort on the west coast of Turkey. The past week has been an almost complete break from travelling. Karen, Damian's wife, has been with us for just over a week. She has not seen Damian since his departure from London so they are both very happy to have been able to spend some quality time together. It may be some time yet before they see each other again with Iran, Pakistan and India on the horizon! We travelled south from Ayvalik through Izmir to Kusadasi and found a very good hotel after some bargaining. We have been staying at Emek Pansiyon for the past 10 days. It is a clean, well-kept, self-catering block with a lovely pool and very hospitable owners. We each have our own en suite rooms with fridges and, as this is the first time we are staying in such luxury, we are not sure we want to leave just yet! We have done some maintenance on the bikes thanks to Karen bringing out some necessary spares. Damian and Gary have both replaced their front brake disks (bent by disk locks back in London) and the long awaited Öhlins shock has been fitted to Gary's bike. We have had a few day trips out
from Kusadasi as there are a few tourist attractions close by. Half a day
was spent visiting Ephesus, the largest Roman ruins dating back hundreds
of years. These were not as impressive as first thought, quite expensive
and took all of 2 hours to see. On Thursday we did a day out on the boat, across the huge bay in which Kusadasi is situated. The boat was quite spacious, fitting about 30 people quite comfortably. The highlight was stopping in a quiet, unspoiled cove and doing some snorkelling. Though this coastline doesn't seem to have much sea life, we did manage to see a few colourful wrasse, an octopus and the odd rock cod, tucked under the algae covered shelves. We did a daytrip out toward Cesme across the bay from Kusadasi on Friday. The weather certainly seems to be heating up and on the road the temperature was around 35 degrees. We stopped at a remote beach for some snorkelling and Dom thought he'd turn around on the beach itself! While turning around he got stuck with the back wheel spinning deep into the sand. As he signalled to the others not to join him Gary followed and got even deeper! Anyway with a few helping hands: Karen and Damian pushing from behind, we managed to launch the bikes back up to harder ground. Dom and Gary did a scuba dive early on Saturday morning. There is a small reef about 1km off Kusadasi that is at about 5 metres under the surface. There was not really much to see but a fairly large grouper did appear for a few seconds. The beach as Kusadasi is where we have spent a lot of time over the past 10 days. The weather has been superb, as has the talent, which daily lines the beach! Our tans have never looked so good! This resort seems to be filled mostly with local Turkish holidaymakers but there are a few European tourists about. It is not yet high season so perhaps that is all about to change? Next week Karen will be back in London and we will continue our journey south to Bodrum and continue along the coast.
Thursday 6 June Friday 14 June Other than that, no real travel as such but about 100 miles of odd journeys around this area.
Wednesday, 5 June 2002 - Greece/Turkey We have finally made it to Asia after spending nearly a month in Europe. We have been on the road 29 days and covered 3815 miles (5629 kms) and are currently camping close to Izmir on the west coast of Turkey. Our last few days in Greece were really great and we met some interesting people and visited some great places. We spent another day in Cavalla and then took a ferry to the Island of Thassos, just off the coast from Cavalla. In Cavalla we met a friendly Greek guy, Giotis, who recommended spending some time on the island of Thassos because, being an offroader himself (he has a Honda 600R), it's paradise for it's off roads. Thassos is beautiful and popular with tourists who enjoy the crystal clear waters and white sandy beaches. We camped close to the beach and spent a half-day swimming in the crisp Aegean Sea. The other half was spent doing some fantastic off road inland on Thassos Island. Here we found miles and miles of unspoiled rocky roads and we loved every minute of it. It had its thrills and spills but nobody actually crashed though there were some close calls! After Thassos we moved further
eastward, catching the ferry from Thassos to Kermati and rode to
Alexandrapoulis. Here we camped quite close to the town but met a local
biker, Telis, who invited us to have a few beers with them at their
motorbike clubhouse that evening. They provided us with some great
information regards travelling to Turkey and some maintenance for our
Africa Twins. Turkey We then travelled to Istanbul on the new motorway, which has been built to accommodate the Athens 2004 Olympics. It's a great road and compared to some of the others we encountered in Greece, probably the best we've seen. Our first real border crossing was a breeze and we had to provide our carnets for the first stamp. After about 45 minutes we were in Turkey without any hassle. On our way through Turkey, we had our fair share of corrupt policeman. The first "offense" was for speeding (we were travelling the same speed as the locals but only we were pulled over!) about an hour outside Istanbul. Here, 2 well-equipped policemen with brand new BMW bikes pulled us over and told us we had been speeding and the fine was 80 million Turkish Lira each (GBP£1 = TL1, 000,000). On opening our wallets this was immediately reduced to 20 million. No tickets were issued and the money simply went into the officer's pockets. They then proceeded to drive off, obviously to go and do a similar thing somewhere down the road to some other poor unsuspecting tourists like us! Once we arrived in Istanbul, we realised the change from 1st world Europe to 3rd world Asia. Every corner was met with some local trying to sell you something! Istanbul was quite a nightmare to find accommodation by motorbike. After asking several locals, who included a siren driver escort by a policeman who got lost, we were eventually rescued by a local friendly Africa Twin rider, Alisan Yargici. He led us to a friendly hotel in the heart of Sultana met, the touristy part where our friends Clive and Mandy were also staying. The Best Hippodrome hotel we stayed at is very reasonably priced; biker friendly and we certainly recommend it to anyone visiting Istanbul. They insisted we park our bikes right in front of the hotel and they were well cared for and guarded 24 hours. After settling into our spacious 3-bed room including bathroom, the best accommodation we've had in weeks, we met up with Clive and Mandy for dinner. The next day was spent site seeing around Istanbul where we visited the Hagia Sofia mosque, one of the largest of it's kind. We also saw the ancient underground Roman Basilica cistern, which was a secret water storage system many centuries ago. Istanbul is not Mediterranean; most people go out and eat early. By midnight things are very quiet but for a few tourists about. After dinner it's custom to smoke a shish (hubbly bubbly) in Turkey. As some of us had not done this before it was quite a funny experience to watch! Check out the photos of the "novice" shish smokers. We visited the Bosphorus, which separates Europe from Asia and crossed the bridge the following day on our bikes. In the evening we did a boat trip up along the Bosphorus up to the bridge and back. After leaving Istanbul behind, we
spent 3 days there; we caught the ferry to Bandirma. The 2-hour crossing
was in a large, high-speed ferry that would usually take 5 hours. It is
relatively cheap at TL 24 million (US$ 24) and almost like an aircraft
with business class and economy class seats. We continued south yesterday, down towards Izmir, where we'll meet Karen, Damian's wife, on Saturday. Today we are going to visit the ancient Acropolis about 50km from our campsite as part of a days sightseeing in this area. Tomorrow we will continue south closer to Izmir and hopefully find a cheap hotel in which to spend a few days at the beach. We also have one days maintenance to do on the bikes before Karen arrives on Saturday. We will be spending a week close to Izmir while Karen is here with us and perhaps visiting another Greek Island (perhaps Kos or Rhodes) if our visas permit!
Tuesday 28 May Wednesday 29 May Thursday 30 May Friday 31 May Saturday 1 June Sunday 2 June Monday 3 June Tuesday 4 June Monday 27 May 2002 - Greece We are currently in Cavalla, 200km east of Thessalonica in Greece. We have been on the road for 21 days and covered 3041 miles (4866 km). After leaving lovely Sorrento below Naples we headed around the peninsula via Amalfi. This area is truly a gem in Italy's geography. It was only some 50 miles but took us almost 2 hours to get around the narrow coastal roads. It reminded us of the Cape coastline in South Africa, similar to navigating your way around Chapman's peak. After leaving the West coast, we headed east toward the ferry port of Brindisi. We stopped briefly in Matera to see the Roman village of Sassi before making camp just outside in a rye grass field due to the lack of campsites close to the ferry. It was an early start (6am) to get
to Brindisi and we managed to get onto the daily 10:30 sailing without any
hiccups. We found a campsite on the beachfront and spent the night in Igoumenitsa as we had run out of daylight by the time the ferry made it to land. Friday was spent mostly on the bike
as we headed east, closer to Turkey. Most people do the Igoumenitsa to
Thessalonica ride over 2 days but we found it possible to do it in one.
The road crossed over the Voria Pindos Mountains to Grevena so there were
some lovely scenic passes. After Kozani toward Veria, the road had some
lovely 50mph sweeping corners. We chose to have a day at the beach for Damian's birthday and chill out to enjoy the sunshine. We managed to wash the bikes, do a little maintenance and catch up on some other necessary chores (washing clothes, communication). On Sunday we continued our journey
eastward and arrived at Cavalla, some 200km east of Thessalonica, at
around 5pm. We are camping right on the beachfront away from the town
centre. We caught a taxi into town last night for dinner and did a bit of
sightseeing. This town is used as a port to ferry people to and from the
popular Greek islands, of which some are visible from the shore. We hope to be in Istanbul by Saturday the 1st to meet up with Clive and Mandy, who will kindly be bringing out some spares for us. Itinery of the last few days: Wednesday 22 May Thursday 23 May Friday 24 May Saturday 25 May Sunday 26 May Monday 27 May
Tuesday 21 May 2002 - Italy We are currently in Sorrento, Italy
close to Naples. We have been on the road for 15 days and completed 2320
miles (3700 km). Sorrento is a small village located south east of Naples
out on a peninsula.
Thursday 16 May 2002 - Italy We have now been on the road for 10
days having left a cold and wet London on 7 May. We are currently in Italy
staying close to Meldola in a village called San Colombano, west of
Florence with the Venezia family. They have kindly opened up their home
for us to use as a base to tour Italy from. It is about 2 hours south to
Rome, an hour to Florence and half an hour to the east coast. France: (2 days) Germany: (2 days) Austria: (1 day) The bikes are running very well and have performed effectively in a variety of conditions we've encountered. There have been long 80mph motorway sections; alpine ski hairpin passes as well as the odd bit of off road riding. The weather has also varied from sunshine, rain and freezing conditions in the Alps. The brakes seem to be the most prominent component this week when descending the passes. We may need to get some extra front brake pads, as the weight we are carrying seems to be using them relatively quickly. Here's a breakdown of the past 8 days: UK - France - Germany - Austria - Italy Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: Friday: Saturday: Sunday: Monday: Tuesday:
Tuesday 7 May 2002 - London Departure day, at last! After what seemed a lifetime of planning the big day has finally arrived. All the hard work we have put in seems to be paying off at last. All the modifications we hoped to complete on the bikes on the last few days has been finished (weld larger side stand plates, brake pad changes, etc.) though Damian and Dominic had their work cut out in the last day with a few hiccups. A great big thank you to all who were involved in the organisation of this trip. A special thank you to Karen, Rulan, Andy, Kelly, Clive and Mandy. Your hard work is greatly appreciated in making our trip a success. Clive and Mandy - thanks for the top t-shirts! We will be heading over the channel today and entering France at Calais hoping to be somewhere close to the German border tonight via the Alps. From there some lovely scenic roads heading toward Munich to pick up our carnets on Friday and then down to Italy at the end of the week. We look forward to all communication we receive out on the road from today but please accept that we only respond after a few days. We will try our best to respond to all mails received.
Thursday 14 March 2002 - London Damian has finished his contract IT work and is concentrating his efforts on the web site and trip promotion. Dominic and Gary will finish work at the end of March and be handed a big "to do" list for April. In the meantime, evenings are filled with Internet researching and gathering vital information for the trip. The web site is beginning to take shape as we prepare to approach our potential sponsors. The remaining work still to be done on the bikes includes:
We are in the process of ordering and arranging dates to have the required work on the shock absorbers done. A complete Ohlins rear unit is on order and will be fitted by ourselves in mid April. The front shocks will have harder, stiffer springs fitted and the oil changed to a higher viscosity. This will improve the handling and reliability of the bike. We will be doing a 3-4 day test run towards the end of April. This should simulate our departure day (bikes equipped and fully laden) so we can identify any outstanding problems or areas we can improve on. All 3 of us are in the current
process of having the various mandatory and optional inoculation
injections. This process takes 3-4 weeks to complete. We started the
vaccination process with three months to spare, allowing for mandatory
gaps between various injections. Damian will be putting on a suit and tie to approach some sponsors next week. So this weekend we'll have to take some more "portfolio" photo's to upload onto the web site Our web site is our CV. Two other travellers, David Broughton and George van Waldburg, are also leaving London on a similar adventure, around the time we are leaving. We'll be meeting up with them in early April to make contact with them and exchange ideas.
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