Ireland-Kazakhstan(Sept04-Apr06)

(From bottom to top)

1. Ireland - France (Sept 04-Dec04/ Ireland, France)
2. Nice - Ljubljana (Feb 05-Mar 05/ France, Croatia, Slovenia)
3. Ljubjlana - Dubrovnik (Mar 05-Apr 05/Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia)
4. Dubrovnik - Burgas (Apr 5-May 18/Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria)
5. Burgas - Iasi via Istanbul (May19-Jul20/Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania)
6. Chisinau-Tbilisi via Baku (Jul21-Aug26/Moldova, Transneistir, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbidjan)
7. Tbilisi-Tehran (26 Aug-13 Oct/Georgia, Armenia, Iran)
8. Tehran-Almaty (14 Oct-18Nov/Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan)
9. Winter in Almaty (18 Nov-3 May/Kazakhstan)

*****

9. Winter in Almaty

(18 Nov-3 May/Kazakhstan)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

The first snow marked our timely arrival in Almaty. The temperature dropped to sub zero and the nights started drawing on well into the grey morning light. For 2 weeks we watched DVDs and ate micro waved pizza (as well as sampling some delightful home cooking) at Andy and Elspeth?s huge house on the leafy hills overlooking the city. There were many visible signs of economic improvements (mostly the soaring number of Porsche Cayennes and more traffic jams). But the standard 2-bedroom flat in a communist-built concrete block where we soon moved had the distant flavour of our placement 3 years ago in a rural district of North Kazakhstan.

VSO volunteering with the Kazakhstan Tourism Association
A recent merger between VSO and BESO (http://www.vso.org/) meant that 3 months placements were now possible. We were employed by the Kazakhstan Tourism Association (KTA) to develop a business and marketing strategy for their newly opened Ecotourism Information and Resource Centre (http://www.ecotourism.kz/) and to improve KTA?s member newsletter, English language skills and help develop their strategy. Thus a chance to meaningfully contribute to the $2 bn government tourism strategy that up to now had mostly relied on fossil fuels to achieve the country?s 10% growth rate.

The minimum temperature in Almaty of around -20C seemed mild in comparison with the -47C we had experienced in the village (with outside toilets, no running water and sharing the house of a rather stubborn babushka without speaking any Russian whatsoever). But the appalling lack of decent public transport largely compensated for this slight disappointment. We often had to huddle at the bus stop in the pouring snow and watch 2 or 3 busses arrive and depart, doors still wide opened with some poor piece of humanity still hanging off, while a compact and moving mass of commuters was finding its way into unsuspecting still empty corners of the vehicle (e.g. the area between the bus driver and its mirror). Once a relatively less packed bus swayed by, the trick was to race the babushkas to the door, step in with the confidence and humility of a Tokyo metro commuter and elbow ourselves away from the door lest the next wave of passengers making their way to the exit well before the next stop would force us out of the wheezy vehicle before our stop. Once a reliable link in the faultless commuting chain of some small town in Germany, our bus now had dark curtains drawn over the white ice crystals covering its draughty windows and Russian rock blared through the intercom system. Only a few German stickers had been left ?stout orders to use the back exit (or else) and menaces of a 100 DM fine for travelling without a valid ticket. (In some vehicles these remnants of authority had judiciously been covered up with posters of page 3 girls or sports cars.)

Work-related frustrations were more in line with what we had experienced 3 years ago. Temptation was great of course to put everything down to national differences. But were they? Non-adherence to advertised office hours and poor time management happen at home too. So do long drawn-out meetings, but perhaps not twice as long as they should last because of translation. And the perfect inability to plan ahead which we repeatedly observed was perhaps a natural reaction to the ominous Gosplan that had ruled the former Soviet Union. Although the resulting flexibility to get things done somehow at the 11th hour has to be admired, once you can adjust your stress levels to the local ways.

Other very pleasant sides of the cultural difference included serious birthday celebrations. All staff would take a couple of hours to prepare and attend a small banquet and toast the birthday kid, repeatedly saying all sorts of nice and encouraging things that they would never have otherwise had the opportunity to say. A definite team builder, especially when the vodka flows.

Living the ecotourism values: 2 short breaks in South Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Since our placements were directly linked to developing ecotourism in Kazakhstan, we took the first possible opportunity to live the values we promoted. First a weeklong eco-tourist holiday in South Kazakhstan with Johnny?s mum who had flown over to visit for two weeks in early March. Then a 5-day trip to the other side of the Kyrgyz border to test a competitor?s product around Lake Issykul.

The train stuttered over the tracks all night at about 20 mph. Past the messy outskirts of Almaty the steppe appeared, brown and dusty at first then blue in the pink morning light. The rising sun drew a golden rim on the craggy, snowcapped edge of the Tian Shan range. On the platform of Turkubaz station, the coordinator for the ecotourism project (http://www.wildnature.kz/) at nearby Aksu Zhabagly village, Svetlana spotted us easily. Below the brown wooly hat pulled over her eyebrows, the same pale bright blue eyes smiled at us deeply sunk in her tanned cheeks. Her English had vastly improved since our visit to the national park 3 years ago. On the way to the village the rattling Lada Niva swerved rather erratically around the potholes. Outside the steppe was honey coloured and brand new blossoms glittered in the rising sun.

At the village, VSO Kazakhstan had taken over the B&B accommodation available from the Community-Based Ecotourim (CBE) programme. The entire contingent of volunteers and the programme office staff had gathered from the far corners of this vast country for a skill share event (in other words, a 2-day part cuddling session to foster belonging, part winging session about how hard it was to be a volunteer in Kazakhstan). We had agreed to extend our placements by an extra month partly to attend this recurring event. Particularly since VSO had had the good sense to hold it at one of the ecotourism destinations we had been working hard to promote.

The local mayor decided to bring forward the spring holiday celebrations (the festival of Nauryz) so that we could witness a maximum turnout of local ?white beards? wrapped in traditional long gold-embroidered dark velvet coats and matching hats. The traditional rituals and speeches were held in front of the village school on top of a long trailer covered with a white cloth for the officials to stand on. Children?s desks from the school had been brought out to allow the most venerable members of the community to sit comfortably. We were blessed with a sunny sky just one day before a great downpour on the official day of the holiday.

For the opening a tubby granny walked around the crowd of sweet-sucking children and dignified white-bearded elders waving a smoking bunch of aromatic herbs. We all ran our stretched hands over our faces and hummed 'omin' in thanksgiving for this great and no doubt highly effective purification from the winter demons. In between speeches by officious and rather pregnant-looking officials and poems to the spring by skinny youths battling with a dodgy microphone, a traditional soup of 7 springtime ingredients was served to the white beards. Two small children were then brought in front of the trailer and the ankles were tied together. Scissors were handed to an imposing god-parent who proceeded to 'free' the child while a parent elbowed the child to produce a convincing leap. This is ?cutting the hobble?, a ritual to mark the ability of a new member of the community to start roaming freely, point of some significance surely to a traditionally nomadic culture.

The remaining rituals were more in line with the Russian tradition, tug of war and vodka downing contest. Both the VSO male and female teams were gloriously pulled to the dust in their attempt to compete at tug of war against respectively a bunch of experienced lumberjacks, and the most imposing collection of child-baring matrons this side of the Oxus. We were no better at the next event. A banquet in the school hall served as the excuse for the vodka downing contest -the ubiquitous rice and mutton-based 'plov' more of an excuse for downing shots than sustenance in its own right.

After the seminar had finished we stayed behind for a couple of days, watching the cows come home on the dusty road along which the village houses huddled. The sun had returned and the tops of the peaks surrounding the valley glistered with newly fallen snow. It was quiet and peaceful.

We left for our second ecotourism destination, Ugam and a visit to the mausoleum in Turkestan. Blooming fruit trees turned to the deserted vastness of the southern steppe. For miles there was nothing but the long, straight ribbon of asphalt and, sometimes in the distance, the dust cloud of some grazing flock or the dumpy silhouette of a Bactrian camel. Then, mud walls rose from the dust and a shimmering dome of bright turquoise tiles materialized from the desert. The saint buried in Turkestan was a founding member of Sufism and three visits to his grave are believed to be equivalent to one Hadj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. We sat by the squat Saxaul trees. In a few weeks the vast beds of rose bushes surrounding the mausoleum would surround this gem with a pool of bright red ruby.

We stayed overnight at the house of our driver, who was also the coordinator of the Ugam CBE programme. I gloriously deprived myself of the opportunity of a warm shower (a rare treat in rural Kazakhstan) when I failed to notice the lime- and rot-covered tap sticking to the bottom of the highly suspicious pressured tank in the bathroom. Obviously that was the hot water switch. Never mind! We whiled the evening away listening to stories of Alihan?s exploits as a Soviet fighter pilot and, of course, toasting rather too much to eternal friendship and peace.

A couple of hours later, we were greeted with tea in the village of Kaskasu. Then our hosts took us to the national park in their rattling Lada. We walked up a pristine mountain spring still surrounded by melting snow. I sat amidst snowdrops and butterflies and great big boulders polished by the years while Johnny disappeared behind the next ridge, exploring and the chubby lady of the house let herself slide down the snow-covered hill on her backside laughing heartedly at my bemused look. It would have been an idyllic retreat but for the fact that our host had obviously not been briefed that to ply your guests with too much food and vodka isn't necessarily everyone's idea of a relaxing holiday.

Our next stint of ecotourism was a 4 day tour around Lake Alakol in Kyrgyzstan. There we repeatedly tested the well-established community-based tourism (CBT) programme (www.cbtkyrgyzstan.kg) developed by Swiss NGO Helvetas. We made our way from Bishkek to the stunning lake shores, surrounded by the immaculate peaks of the Tian-Shan and Pamirs, in a stuffy mini-bus filled with chattering Kyrgyz to Tamchy. There we watched a family of craftsmen demonstrate how to make a traditional felt mat. We gazed at the deep blue waters of the 170 Km long lake, the second largest alpine lake in the world after Titicaca, and shared the simple but tasty food of the Kyrgyz nomads, washed out of a bucket and trundled down to a clean the pit-toilet in the middle of the night, comforted in the conviction that our Kazakhstan CBE product was not that far behind.

Back to Taranovskoe, our VSO placement 3 years ago
Our return to Kazakhstan could not have been complete without a trip back to our original placement, the small village of Taranovskoe, huddled on the northern fringe of the Siberian steppe, only a few kilometers from the Russian border.

Rather than spending 4 days on the train, we boarded the propeller-powered Anatov plane proudly operated by (get this) ?SCAT? airlines. After a four hour long, ear shattering non-stop flight from Almaty to Kostanai we finally made it to the capital of the Virgin Lands. In a last wheeze, we descended towards the sun-bleached landing strip watching the crumbling concrete blocks of the various micro-regions (communist housing estates) rise towards us, proud testimonies of the grand Soviet state.

Kostanai, the main city of this region had not changed much. Once our promised land, it now appeared a sleepy provincial town still. To reach Taranovskoe around 200 Km away required skillful bartering with much less reasonable taxi drivers than 3 years ago. On the 2 hour journey across the desolate steppe we were careful to tone down our enthusiasm in order to avoid disappointment. We joked with our former interpreter Olga, who had accepted to take a trip back while she was on holiday from her studying in St Petersburg, that our former colleagues at the Akimat ? the local government - would probably have forgotten all about the training we had so painfully delivered and gone back to their old ways.

VSO volunteers of little faith that we were. The village and the Akimat had continued to change beyond our wildest expectations. Our former colleagues were expecting us with one success story after another. The computer network we had finally managed to convince them to build 3 years ago was being expanded... because the capacity of the old one was just too small for all the new computers they now had. What? Was it the same people who had fought hand and fist to try and save their budget from the illuminated strangers and their weird ideas of computerizing their work 3 years ago? While we were being treated with tea, jams and biscuits around the various departments we listened somewhat flabbergasted at people reminding us of the computer training classes we had given them and how they had been busy automating all their reports themselves.

Various lines of questioning confirmed our theory that success was a result of more than just our work. They had started operating a gold mine 25 km north of the village, a significant revenue-booster for the local government. However the economy department now produced a development strategy for the district every year, as well as a four-year one, based on the model we had sweated to distill through weekly management meetings during our placement. Our former boss the Akim is now working directly for the president. The people of Taranovskoe hoped he would come back soon as a regional Akim and carry on the good work.

We walked around the dusty streets of the village, checking out the rows of satellite dishes which had mushroomed on so many roofs in so little time. Were we right to be amazed that our mobile phones now had coverage here, when we had felt so isolated here before? It had taken us a month to get the first internet connection (a grumpy telecoms engineer had finally turned up and hard-wired the phone line into our modem). Now people were talking about opening an internet cafe in the village.

At the small banquet our colleagues had organized in our honour at the village cafe the food stale and moudly three years ago was now fresh and appealing and we toasted their success with Moldavian wine.

Our ride out of the village came free of charge, courtesy of the infrastructure department. The head of the department, on his way to the regional courthouse announced that government funding would be granted in three years time to repair the water system and re-install running water in the village. They now know how to write meaningful proposals to their government to request help. It sounded like a dream.

As we are about to push off for the last leg of our journey through Siberia and Mongolia, we are glad to have taken up a last chance to work as VSO volunteers here in Kazakhstan. VSO is pulling out of the country next year because the country is now economically vibrant. What we saw in Taranovskoe is the proof that Kazakhstan is really moving on. And what is most encouraging is that the gloomy fatalism we struggled so hard against in our first placement has now turned into so much enthusiasm and willingness to improve of their own accord and with their own means. If we were only a minute part of it, it is the best piece of news we can bring back home.

*****

8. Tehran-Almaty

(14 Oct-18Nov/Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

From the blazing cotton fields of Iran's Caspian coast through the black Karakum desert of Turkmenistan, over the great Oxus river and past the blue tiled domes of Uzbekistan we reach the golden steppes of South Kazakhstan just in time for the first snow. Our great race through Central Asia burns out our bodies and we are both ready for our 3 month "working-break" in Almaty.

Iran
6 am. Leafy Northern Tehran is slowly waking to a brand new week. My heart sinks and my bike swerves as I turn back one last time. Mum is standing in the street, waving, her blond curls exposed to the wrath of the religious police. In the emotion and rush of our early departure, she left her headscarf inside. Luckily the mullahs are sleeping in this morning.

The train station lies beyond 12 Km of thick-fumed and haphazard traffic. A collective taxi laden with 4 imposing ladies wrapped in their best Sunday chador swerves out....... and misses me. I try and stick with Johnny masterfully surfing a wave of roaring and honking Paykans. At the next junction traffic somehow switches direction and faces us. Never mind. The policemen are carefully looking away from this mess and a bus driver slams on the brakes to let us catch the downstream tide of the undulating bus lane.

Inside the train station a mop is quietly preceeding an impeccable uniform along the shiny marble floor. Silence. It suddenly seems we've dreamt the last hour's high adrenaline ride. We still don't know if the bikes will be allowed on the train to Sari, one of the most stunning routes to reach the Caspian coast. Our combined efforts to establish this fact over the past week revealed conflicting information. An expat working for the train company told us definitely "No", the staff we contacted through the website told us "No problem" and the travel agents we called up said we'd have to ship the bikes separately through a road service. Yet a man waiting at the desk addresses us by name as we arrive and we were told where to go - he has clearly been thoroughly briefed on the matter. After introducing us to a few workmates who duly interview me via Johnny about my opinion on having to wear a scarf, he leads us to the platform. An entire compartment has been reserved for us. The train leaves on the dot and the 7 hour-journey through a deep canyon cut through layers of rusty, ocre and copper green rocks by far beats any other itinerary we could have cycled. Highly recommended.

From Sari we journeyed through sweltering cottonfields to a neat campsite on a rocky pier along the hazy shores of Bandar-e-Gaz. We had breakfast watching a fisherman stun the fish into his net by hitting the water with a long stick. A dense fog rose from the Caspian towards the slopes of the Alborz range. The locals call it the "jungle". An engineer from nearby Gonbad-e-Kavus took us there with his four gilrs. A tame jungle nestled in a deep gorge where a chilly wind blew over gazebos made of hand-woven rugs. Coloured lightbulbs joined the stream of teahouses and cast iron jugs steamed in the glowing ambers of their rustic barbecues. Earlier, the gilrs had immediately offered to show me the city, leaving the men at home. The youngest drove the brand new family Peugot 306 (or its Farsi equivalent) in the same hair-rising manner as any male driver I had observed and with great confidence in the mercifulness of Allah. The three gilrs walked me to the medieval grave tower, dominating the beautifully planted park. Wrapped in their black cloaks they chattered and asked streams of questions about the West. I felt slightly under-dressed with just a light blue headscarf thrown over my manteau. Yet it seems to bother them a lot less than the multicoloured flowery scarves and coats we walk past nearby. "Turkman", they whispered with a mixture of despise and fear.

A couple of days later we finally came across the Turkmen nomads. In the pouring rain their huge square felt tents, pitched under three rows of tree trunks and held to the ground with big boulders resembled huge spikey cobwebs stretched over the muddy steppes. A group of kids ran towards us in soaked wooly hats and jumpers. By the time we reached Quchan, the temperature gauge on Johnny's speedo went down to 5C. Only 2 days earlier, it had gone up to over 40C as we were diverted off the main road to Mashad through a crimson canyon. A dam had broken we'd been informed, so the main road was closed. (An alternative story from a German cyclist who'd passed that way was that there were armed Afghans hiding in the jungle by the road, so the police were restricting traffic.)

Along the canyon improvised electric pylons stuck out of the dried out mud Red Crescent tents were pitched above devastated mudbrick villages. A corrugated roof had withstood the flood where a bed of barberries had been laid out to dry. The minute we stopped to snap a shot a pool of grubby kids ran out towards us in fits of laughter. Who needs to learn survival from ex-Red Berret commandos?.

Between Quchan and Ashgabat, the smooth terracota hills turned deep brown with snow over their jagged peaks. The tarmac undulated up to 2500 m (twice). A wide river bed filled up with a swollen trickle of dark grey water, worn gravel smoothened rocks and this sticky mud that turns to powder when the rain stops. Motorbikes laden with rice sacks and muffled up passengers rattled past and dissapeared under a crisp transparent sky. We plunged down copper green and black walls and wound up yellow and purple cliffs. At sunset we reached Bagjiran. A quiet border post. The Iranian army is a bit touchy about camping near military zones, b.ut an alternative of choice was provided at the local mosaferkhune (guesthouse). The room rate included an annimated debate with the scornful cook to win the right to wear our own flip-flops inside instead of the dubious ones provided by the house. Part two consisted in the irresistible act of four giggly youths attempting to revive a highly suspect stove in the corner of our room oozing of the lowest grade gazoil ever extracted from the Caspian. The evening's entertainment programme ended with the grand finale of a visit to the loo, where no lengthy negociation or tearful pleading could save us from slipping on the regulatory and fully waterproof bathroom slippers. (We understood why the minute we pulled the lethal flush of the smelly squat toilet.)

The following morning, a short climb took us finally up to the border post, where after a few pleasantries with the gaurd we said a final, sad goodbye to Iran.

Turkmenistan
It took an hour for the fairly friendlyTurkmen border guards to type in all the information required into his computer so that he could issue our entry stamps. I dare not imagine what it might have been had we not appointed a local travel agent to assist with all the paperwork. Meanwhile a party of three huge matrons in long deep purple and vermilion velvet dresses and scarves observed the proceedings with a satisfied and self-important smile. The ladies in charge of searching our luggage, perhaps?

I had no opportunity to fully confirm my suspicions however as we were promptly dispatched into a minuscule office where the obscure mechanism of the official administration cranked up a gear to relieve us of 10 USD each. Covering the wall behind the puppet scrbbling our passport details down, a life size poster of the great Turkmenbashi (I am not sure whether president truly fits his omniscient and ubiquitous role). It seems that Turkmenbashi memorabilia has been one of the most vigourous local industries since the Soviet Union collapsed. Although a "free market economy" is hardly the right way to describe the phenomenon.

Turkmenbashi is indeed omnipresent. His portraits and statues ornate every street corner, shop, official building, park, fountain and public place possibly outnumbering those of Vladimir Ilitch Lenin in the entire former Soviet Union.

Outside the small office, a fully uniformed scribe took note of our payment and provided a slip of paper to be handed back to the one-hour computer guy. Thus the magical circle of entering Turkmenistan was completed and we proceeded to wheeling our bikes past the three fat ladies by then fully equipped with white rubber gloves. Luckily they got bored after only two panniers of smelly cycling clothes. (Upon reflection perhaps the worst turn off must have been our food bag containing nothing remotely close to what a Turkmen raised on dead horse and fat bottomed mutton would consider worth eating.)

For the next three days we nursed yet another one of my recurrent ear infections in Ashgabat, watching the extraordinary propaganda displayed to celebrate the 14th anniversary of Neutral and Independent Turkmenistan. There was a stadium full of loyal citizens clothed in traditional costumes performing synchronized marching to form variations on the number 14. There was a military parade featuring a rather unimpressive display of dressage acts by men wearing huge furry hats mounted on the finest (and jumpiest) Turkmen thoroughbreds. There were the corporations of happy workers parading the grand avenue past the golden-domed Turkmenbashi palace with huge floats showing the great technological achievements of the past 14 years. My favourite was the oil field float, complete with nodding donkeys and the triumphant waves of fully uniformed engineers. (Still worth applauding though since a litre of petrol here comes cheaper than a bottle of mineral water). But the ultimate treat must have been the parade of schoolchildren in bright yellow uniforms and crisp white shirt and blouses, wheeling a giant replica of Great Turkmenbashi's Runama - a book he wrote to share his highly personal view of the birth and growth of the Turkmen nation coated in several dubious layers of Central Asian philosophy. Not only does Turkmenbashi spread the word amongst his own crowds (Runama has to be learnt by heart at schools), but he also recently sent into space from the neighbouring Baikonur ground station (perhaps someone up there will make some sense of it.)

After three days of this great insight into local culture only 5 days of our hard earned visa remained to cross the Karakum Desert into Uzbekistan. It will therefore come to no surprise that we clocked our record mileage to date during those 5 days with respectively 196 Km and 195 Km on days 1 and 3. We had the pleasure and the obligation to pay 30 dollars a day to be escorted by a very efficient local travel agent (Ayan Travel). Thus we attained the envied rank of international fully supported expedition. The support consisted in a battered Lada Sputnik with luxury lino floor lining driven by Vladi. Deeply sunk pale blue eyes, a painfully skinny body and, with the most astonishing set of gold teeth, the most expensive smile this side of the Karakum. But then what do you expect when the man survived on half a dozen of stale wafer biscuits and 5 cups of coffee a day. Besides this, Vladi was a master at getting us through checkpoints (twice a day at least) speedily dodging the greasy paws of the fat bellied police officers. His second most appreciated skill was that of building and feeding campfires, a skill which the thinness of his sleeping bag and the large amount of caffeine he ingested gave him plenty of sleepless hours to nurture. Twice we woke up by the misty reeds edging the Karakum canal, (the longest canal in the world at over 1,500km and sadly part of the disastrous project that drained the Aral Sea) only to find Vladi crouched by a huge pile of saxaul wood, his little cast iron kettle buried in the ambers, grinning with his best gold to announce that tea would be ready soon. In the 5 days we spent together, Vladi only modified his diet three times. At the "Buffet" on the first floor of the decrepit soviet style Hotel Turkmenistan, a forty something lady with her hair in layers of peroxide blond and jet black brought him a glass full of sour cream, which he lapped up so speedily and with such obvious delight that we instantly nicknamed him "the Cat". A name he fully lived up to next lunch complementing his usual fair of biscuits and coffee by spooning out a small tin of pate straight out into his golden mouth. The third time he broke his routine was for our last dinner together in Turkmenabad. Johnny and he shared a plate of chunky river fish from the nearby Amu Darya (the Oxus) washed down with a few shots of Turkmenbashi vodka (Ah yes, forgot to mention, HE is also on the vodka labels). Johnny spent all night on the toilet (the fish rather than the vodka we think) and had to go across the border the next morning running for cover every 15 minutes. The Cat was unaffected. He sympathised though and tried to convince the border guard to let him through to help Johnny with his bike. But nothing could be arranged and we had to wave him good bye and wheel ourselves past piles of rice sacks and crates of dubious content and squeeze through a cackling crowd of velvet dresses and scarves.

I had to do all the talking and it was just as well since we got through the border without any hassle despite missing two of the most necessary customs declarations.

Uzbekistan and South Kazakhstan
Bukhara was just as we remembered it from 2 years ago, just wetter and with the added bonus of a newly opened Italian restaurant where we dined by candle light due to a power failure.
Whoever wrote about the "golden road to Samarkand" never tried to cycle it in October when the re-surfacing team has only had time to dig up the road.... not tarmac over it. The most thorough mud bath we've had since riding through Ecuador during the rainy season. Only here the rain was bloody cold and the sun was not going to come out to dry it all out in no time.

In Tashkent our friend Vali who had driven us around two years ago laid out a full banquet in our honour, then invited us to his daughter's birthday. It was the first time the family visited her new husband's family and a grand affair. I was instantly promoted to the rank of honorary man and allowed to sit and watch the vodka-downing contest at the boys' table. (None of the women spoke English and only very little Russian so perhaps it was after all the more entertaining thing to do.) In Uzbekistan the wife of the first son moves in to her in-laws house and acts as a servant until they die. Vali's wife told me she had to be a servant in her husband's house for 25 years on top of bringing in the family's sole regular income as a schoolteacher. At home the amenable and courteous Vali turned to a finger snapping bully who bossed his daughter-in-law in and out of the kitchen to bring more and more food onto an already overloaded table, then produced her newborn baby son to be photographed in the arms of his grand father. It was hard to recognise the woman from the wedding video we were shown. Was the shy creature crouched in her bright toweling dress the same mesmerising creature that had presided at the wedding banquet in her glittering dress? Uzbek women may not have to wear headscarves but I am not sure they are not worse off even than their sisters in Iran. These suspicions were only confirmed while attending a traditional wedding on our last evening in Tashkent. When the wedded couple descended from the car, which drove them to the reception, an important moment of the proceeding consisted in the groom stepping on the bride's foot to signify that he was her master. She spent the entire evening her head bent down in submission to her new husband and in-laws... Meanwhile the musicians were running a healthy business, calling various guests and family up to the dance floor. Entire tables followed suit and proceeded to stuffing banknotes into the dancers' wavering hands. As soon as the money was given, a sleazy adolescent assisting the band snatched it and piled it in huge wedges on top of the keyboard. The whole business of marrying your children can almost drain an entire family. Yet rather than changing the tradition, the Uzbeks keep piling on unwanted food on already overloaded tables and handing out banknotes.

The rain stopped just as we set off for the Kazakh border. Having waited for an hour on the Uzbek side for the custom officer on duty to turn up, we cleared Kazakhstan's immigration in a mater of minutes. On the other side suddenly there was space. The crowded irrigated countryside of Uzbekistan gave way to this huge, wild and untamed place that is Kazakhstan. Here the horses and sheep ar master and man is a mere detail.

We camped our last night this side of winter on a golden steppe of spiky camel grass and wild grass. A pack of horses grazed in the backdrop of the snowcapped Tian Shan range. We ate our usual noodle soup watching the cows come home on their own along a slow flowing river. A man we had greeted in the afternoon galloped across the steppe at full pelt to invite us to his home. We declined unsure if Johnny's stomach could take the vodka yet. It was dark and we had been buried in our down sleeping bags for a while gazing at the stars through the skylight of our tent when a gang of curious boys from the nearby village turned up. Johnny got out and established all they wanted was to know where we were from. Nothing less, nothing more. Having established that, they scuttled off in the frosty night.

The rain caught us again in Shymkent. I had been fighting off yet another ear infection picked up in the Uzbek rains. A good dose of food poisoning brought it to full blown scale and we decided to hop on the train it to Almaty. The bikes had to travel on a separate train but it was all very official and duly documented and Johnny was able to pick them up next day at the station without any problem. Meanwhile I was tucked in crisp white sheets on the third floor of the grand mansion of our friends Andy and Elspeth. Outside snowflakes were piling on a thick white crust and I wasn't sorry at all to have chickened out of the last few kilometres to Almaty. We have a couple of weeks only to get back to fighting weight and start our VSO placements for the Kazakhstan Tourism Association. Working on developing a strategy and marketing plan for ecotourism in Kazakhstan sounds right up our avenue and we are both looking forward to some sort of settled life for the cold winter months.

(See website from organisation we are working with: www.ecotourism.kz).

*****

7. Tbilisi-Tehran

(26 Aug-13 Oct/Georgia, Armenia, Iran)

Tbilisi to Tehran-> <-Iran Tour

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

Armenia:
1. Armenia facts

• People: After our amazing experience of Georgian hospitality, Armenia felt more commercial. If people were hospitable it seemed that it was because they knew that they could make money out of travellers. Perhaps Armenians are and have always been a commercially minded-people. Wandering around the streets of Yerevan we realised that America is less far from Armenia than we expected from the dilapidated Soviet infrastructure that litters its sadly visually polluted (but nonetheless dramatic) landscape. Many Armenians have ties with the US (having lived there or having relatives there) and they were quick to learn the tricks of the trade of a market economy.
• On the Road: camping, hostels, vegetarian food and conditions: We used the North to South axis (entering via Sadakhlo and exiting via Meghri). It is in very good condition, serving traffic transiting between Russia and Iran. We heard that the road via the Bavra border crossing is in very poor condition.
  
  The borders were very straightforward to cross, the visa available at the entry border for 35 USD. Northern Armenia is very humid and we were rained on daily until we reached the pass to lake Sevan.
  
  To get to the Iran border a breathtaking climb up parched peaks took us through the last remnants of the great Caucasus chain.
  
  Home stays often had limited water supply, a bit of a bummer for sweaty or cold cyclists.
  
  Vegetarian food was always readily available (in the countryside, the usual Caucasian fare of sheep?s cheese, cucumber and tomato, fresh bread, and potato). In Yerevan we loved the Syrian restaurants and gorged on falafel, huge baklava and halva.

2. Armenia highlights

• Climb to Haghpat monastery. At kilometer 110 (from Tbilisi) on a scenic ride through the Debed Canyon, we reach the sign for the monastery where we were planning to camp. Good news is that it is only 7km away. Bad news is that it is on the lip of the canyon, up a 15% gradient potholed and infamous track... But the monastery is gorgeous and the mayor took us in and gave us fresh vegetables from his garden to cook ratatouille on his soviet gas stove.
• Funeral procession in Vanadzor, where they paraded the coffin... open?on the way to the graveyard. (Armenians often build tables and benches on the tombs to picnic there on the anniversary)
• Coffee break at the Marriott Hotel of Yerevan after visiting the national gallery opposite (we never saw so many pictures of the see in a country where there isn't one!) It is soooooo nice to sit in a comfy sofa, a piano tinkling in the background sipping a safely prepared carrot juice!

Iran:

1. Iran facts

• The Scarf - To wear it or not to wear it?
  It is law in Iran for women (whether Muslim or not) to cover their hair and neck in public.
  In private (their home or a private room in a restaurant for example) practicing Shia Muslim women will take off their scarf in company of either women only and/or that of male blood relatives - this excludes male long time family friends and brothers in law. (When we were in Shia Muslims' homes, I was invited to remove my scarf but, Johnny being also there, no other woman would do so and I found it more comfortable to hold onto it.)
  Sunni Muslim, Christian and Zoroastrian women (other religions just about allowed in Iran) do not cover up in private whether or not in company of any male guests.
• How loose a scarf can be?
  Some women in the wealthy areas of Tehran and larger cities reveal a fringe of hair, a ponytail or a necklace. In the less well-off areas, smaller towns and countryside, many more women wear the full chador (albeit with a flowery motive) and policemen and older men may remark on a scarf being too far back. But most of the time people will just stare as if you had come down from the moon. Even if I found Johnny's presence the best of all shields, it is much more comfortable to observe and conform to how teenage girls dress (many married women wrap up in the full chador which is definitely not expected of Western visitors).
• Other clothes
  Loose pants, a baggy, long-sleeved shirt covering my bum and a large scarf were fine for border crossing and cycling. Johnny at first wore long-sleeved shirt and pants but quickly changed into shorts when we met local cyclists (male of course!) in tight lycra.
  Wandering around the streets of towns once we got off the bikes I felt less comfortable wearing a shirt and invested in a linen manteau at the first available shop in Tabriz. This dramatically lowered the amount of staring I was subject to.
• People: Openness, curiosity and helpfulness
  We found Iranians extremely keen to come and talk to us to find out about the outside world. Not surprising when you realise that the country has been isolated in many ways for the past 25 years. Many peopled speak enough English to have a basic conversation. We found a lot of interest and curiosity about our life at home, our trip and our impressions of Iran. We were surprised to find people very open about the good and bad sides of the Islamic revolution. We had lively and very tolerant discussions about religion, and found that Islam in practice is a far cry from the extremist picture that is often portrayed in Western media.
  Iranian hospitality was a humbling and extremely enjoyable experience. Never once did we find it overpowering. Our hosts were quick to observe what we liked and disliked and did their utmost to ensure we were comfortable and happy in their homes.
  We realised that communication, getting directions and getting stuff done did not necessarily happen the way we expected but that it nevertheless did happen - often in a surprisingly efficient matter. Our impression was that as long as one is polite and low key, people couldn't do enough to help.
• On the Road: conditions, vegetarian food, camping and police check points
  Having now spent over a month in Iran, we can testify that finding vegetarian food is quite easy provided you are prepared to experiment, hit and miss to discover the vegetarian foods you like and then memorise their Farsi names. Iranians are very polite and obliging people and it is generally no problem to find a polite way to show them what you want from a display or through a fellow customer speaking some English. We eat out at least once a day (for about Euro 3 for both of us) and Anne always manages to find at least one or two vegetarian dishes. Soups, salads (we found raw food safe so far) omelettes, aubergine dishes, yogurt, soft cheese, bread, and rice. Even in the most common restaurants that usually serve a set menu, it is possible to get grilled tomato instead of meat as your "kebab", onion, fresh lime and soup. So you really don't have to survive on rice alone as we once read a traveller complain. Corner shops and markets sell nuts, dried fruit, halva, peanut butter and tins of vegetarian ratatouille, cooked aubergine, beans and mushroom in tomato sauce etc... as well as all the implements to indulge in the "national sport" of picnicking.
  
  We camped off the road between Tabriz and Tehran and it was never a problem to find a suitable private spot. Water is frequently available either bottled from the many shops on the road or in the cultivated areas (but you do need to plan a bit), where we found many irrigation pools on the road side (we do carry a water filter). However we never really dared to wash there and held onto our baby wipes until we got to a private bathroom.
  
  On the main roads (not the motorways) we found frequent police check points near major towns and at county borders. Policemen were always very polite and if they stopped us it was generally to ask us questions about our trip rather than to check our passports. Once a policeman asked to see our passports. We suspected that what he and his mates really wanted to find out was whether Anne was a man or a woman (we never saw a woman on a bicycle in Iran). But it is never too wise to hand over your precious passport to anyone albeit dressed as a policeman and standing beside a police check point. So instead we just asked "why?". Of course his English didn't reach far enough to giving us a meaningful or even honest answer. However basic human psychology (at which Johnny is a bit of a master) suggested we had to allow him to keep a good face in front of his colleagues (who spoke no English but had prompted him to wave us down). So we quickly engaged in a sign-language conversation about the towns past and future with the lot of them and we never heard the question again. Instead we had to politely refuse to have tea with them.
  
  The road network is in very good condition with smooth asphalt. In September, it was still boiling from 10 am onwards and often windy. Despite the terrible reports of Iranian drivers and the punishing statistics on deaths on the road (20,000 deaths/year), we found drivers decent. Trucks generally left us as much space as possible and cars often slowed right down to have a look at us. Teenage motorbikers were a bit of a hazard riding into towns as they always tried to find out about us while weaving in and out of traffic and often didn't remember our panniers stuck right out (ouch!). Luckily, Johnny likes a bit of a banter and knows how to hold onto his handlebars with a vengeance. As for me, I was largely ignored once they figured I was a woman. (Mostly perhaps because I didn't really reply to any questions anyway.) I just followed the conversation being shouted across clouds of Paykan exhausts from behind and hoped for the best.
  
  If you must know one rule about driving safely in Iran it is that the guy in front goes first until you manage to pass somehow. Having no horn loud enough to cover the roaring traffic, we sometimes resorted to the word that the delivery man at the bazaar shouts to the punters as he launches his wheelbarrow through a dense crowd of flapping chadors. "Yallah!" they shout in a constant mantra. I later learnt that it was the cry of conquest of the faithful rallied around the Prophet. (Perhaps best to check around you for mullahs first!)

2. Iran highlights

• Tea and politics in Elgoli Park,Tabriz. Only in parks does one get to truly meet the Iranians. In our first Iranian park experience, we were sipping tea and cracking pistachio and chatting to a couple of medicine students discovering quite how thirsty for the outside world Iranians are (especially the young ones). In return we learnt that if many things aren't legal in Iran (e.g. satellite TV, alcohol and drugs) it appears that the mullahs are wise enough to allow a fair bit of way lay to maintain social order.
• The wedding in Zanjan. Guided by God and my love of pistachios we made friends with Saheed, the son of a local pistachio seller ? well not just ?a pistachio seller?, he?s the best, chief engineer of pistachios in fact?.. Not only did he invite us for the night but a week later we returned for his wedding. A three day succession of women/men-only let your hair down parties (ladies you can throw your scarf to the wind for now). Men and women periodically got back together (Anne had trouble finding her new women friends again under the scarves). Then we all danced while the family showered the best dancers with bunches of bank-notes. There was also a hair-rising car procession between the bride and the groom's families' homes. The game was to nick a silver paper broom from the cars that had one and throw bag loads of confetti into the cars that didn't. Needless to say cars had to get pretty damn close to each other in the process, in blaring music (different music in each car) and the entire procession of the 60 or so cars sometimes ending up driving against the tide of already chaotic traffic. Luckily Allah was most beneficent and merciful that night!
• Soltaniye mausoleum. As we lay down for a siesta under the plane trees in front of this impressive sight, a family of picnickers invited us to join them for tea. We ended up spending the night in their home on our way to Qazvin and having a brilliant discussion on politics and religion.
• The Ismaili family at Alamut castle (Qazvin) One of the most amazing roads we have seen so far in Iran. At the castle (more impressive for the sight than the remains) we met an Ismaili family and learnt that this Shia Muslim sect is being given a hard time by the mullahs. Apparently they have a problem with the Ismaili's "unorthodox" worship (prayer meeting in a normal house, not a mosque to read poems rather than the mullah?s interpretation of the Q'ran). Or perhaps it is because in the old days, Persian emperors and thieves alike could hire them to get rid of their enemies... In any case they appeared a totally gentle and peaceful people to us and their leader, the Agha Khan is one of the most prodigious donors to maintain the heritage and help the destitute of the Islamic world.
• Escort into Tehran by a national cyclist. All lycra'd up, we find him on his way back from his daily 150-click ride. He is the only Iranian national cyclist from Tehran. The others come from Tabriz (climbers) or Qazvin (mountain bikers). And if you ever win a Gold for Iran, in any sports, you get a private island, a locally made Peugeot 206, and lifetime pension from the mullahs, in the name of God. As good a motivator as EPO perhaps.
• Paykan overload in Tehran. We were lucky enough to have been eased into Iranian traffic via minor cities. Because even to the initiated traveller and Iranian alike, Tehran traffic dazzles. The usual motorbike conversations take another, even more stunt-like dimension here as a thousand unidentified vehicles try to squeeze into the three lanes of the giant metrolpole's arteries. From Azadi square it was up and up and up, as our friends' house happened to be up in the northern foothills of the mountains above this carbon dioxide-filled cauldron. Add to this that the ubiquitous Paykan, modeled on the good ole British Hillman Hunter (anyone remember that?) guzzles a good 20 liters/100 km and you get a vision of the two wheezy exhausted dripping rags that rang the doorbell. And that was after we were stopped twice by local journalists wanting to interview us. One guy even went to buy us a couple of ice-creams so pitiful we must have looked. Unluckily he was unable to locate a nearby readily available camera crew and we certainly weren't going to climb this nightmare again. Oh well, another time maybe?
• A 10-day excursion with Anne's parents to the South of Iran. The hassle to organise an air conditioned people mover with driver and plan the trip was well worth it and saved us 50% of the cost quoted by local agencies. Hopefully the slide show speaks for itself about the beauty of Esfahan, Shiraz, Kerman and Yazd. And the flight back from Yazd to Tehran on Iran Air was a much smoother and pleasant experience than the segregated security check had left us to expect. All that for only 25 USD a head.
• Sharing a bubbly pipe with a German Saduh, Yazd. Horst is the name and it is the third time he braves the drug traffickers of Baluchistan to go back and forth between his native country and India where he lives with his guru. (The guru sounded familiar, a yogi who has been holding his right fist and arm above his head for 15 or so years...). We had a very entertaining evening listening to his stories, especially that of meeting a bunch of Afghanis trafficking petrol back home. They could only travel at night because the petrol evaporated in the day heat and they would go off in fireworks with the lightest sparkle. Enthused about Horst's exotic appearance (see photo in slide show) they invited him to join them.
  - " I have no visa", he replied anxious to avoid a quick and certain death, albeit somewhat more sparkly than your average one.
  - "Ah but you have a beard" they replied with a smile...
  

*****

6. Chisinau-Tbilisi via Baku
(Jul21-Aug26/Moldova, Transneistir, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbidjan)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

To meet the deadline imposed by our hard won Iranian visas we have to scrap our plan to cycle along the northern shore of the Black Sea to the Caucasus and race the clock to make the weekly boat from Odessa to Poti (Georgia).

Moldova-Transdniestr- Ukraine
(Iasi-Chisinau-Tiraspol-Odessa)
Across Moldova, one of the least industrialised countries in the world, dusty whirlwinds trail a stubborn collection of potholes past a convoy of Belarusian harvesters. Rare derelict concrete blocs of flats rise amidst vast expanses of sunflowers, their black hearts slowly tipping to the west as our longest day so far takes us 158 km to leafy Chisinau. With its new shopping arcades, restaurants and trendy bars the capital could almost pass for a western metropolis (but for the imposing chisel and martel-style parliament building and the dubiously named mobile operator ?MOLDCELL?...

We cycle to the Ukraine via Transdniestr, a self-proclaimed communist republic that split from Moldova in the 90s with the support of Russian troops. The capital Tiraspol takes us back to "soviestskaya vremia". For 20 dollars the ADMINISTRATOR (in gold plated capitals) at the riverside hotel lets us into our "luxe" suite. The bedroom is only big enough to fit a polyester covered double bed and matching heart-shaped cushion. The bathroom is the usual walk in closet containing a standard soviet-made cast iron bath tub. (But "luxe" means there is hot water!) The soviet concept of "luxe" comes in the shape of a big antechamber and the rows of chairs either side of its huge desk. The massive telephone of grey plastic must have had a direct connection to the local apparatchik and the single channel radio is a real an insight into the president's thinking (he also owns the casino, a brash and shiny establishment on the main street suspiciously named "Sheriff", and the string of black, tinted windowed Mercedes and Land Cruiser Jeeps parked outside). The key of the "luxe" suite is the dining/sitting room with its centrepiece of two tables surrounded by enough chairs to host an entire soviet party meeting and a rattling Siberian fridge to cool enough vodka to elect the new presidium. The sofas, armchairs and the TV thrown in against the walls seem an incidental and secondary concern. Yet we are amazed to find we can tune into the BBC World Service. The Sheriff also owns the TV station here. Not quite sure whether he has stakes in the Beeb or whether he sees it as a cheap way to encourage the population to learn English without resorting to CNN and American movies.

At the Ukrainian border we find ourselves making surprisingly quick progress to the front of a queue of rusty Ladas and being suspiciously efficiently ushered towards a small prefab hut. Inside two lardy Transdniestr border guards mastermind the well oiled scam called "spot and shaft the tourist ?cos he has no Moldovan exit stamp!". It consists in proceeding to typical intimidation tactics to get Johnny to fork out 20 Euros to get them to overlook the fact that we do not have an exit stamp from Moldova. It is useless to try and explain that such stamp cannot be obtained, as Moldova (nor indeed any other country but Russia) recognises Transdniestr as an independent country. Therefore, we are still technically in Moldova, as far as the Moldovans and everyone else are concerned. They just don't happen to be manning the border post any more. Here, even Johnny's shrewd counter attacks fail (the 'I don't speak Russian' is masterfully countered by the arrival of a "friendly English-speaking" lad who doesn't speak more than a few words of English: ?you must to pay or bus back!? So, rather than being sent back on a bus to Chisinau where it is dubious we would obtain the stamps anyway, Johnny ends up asking (in Russian):
'What happens if I give you 20 Euros?'
The two guards start giggling and together hold their hands over their eyes. What a sight. What a temptation.
'Had I been on my own', he tells me, fuming as we ride out to the Ukrainian control post, 'I would have kicked them both in the balls!'

In Odessa the huge and amenable Anna Belousovna helps us get our ferry tickets to Georgia organised. We sit at a small table, at a right angle to her huge desk with her assistant answering a detailed interrogatory on our last week's to-ing and fro-ing of emails and faxes in the hope of finding the tickets ready for us to pick up on arrival. Wishful thinking! Once the saga has been recounted and the information recouped the KGB way, it takes a good 20 minutes and involves 4 people full time to obtain an authorisation for our credit card payment by the local bank. Sounds like it will take a while for the Ukraine to even start thinking about joining the EU. While we wait, Anna Belousovna tells us about starting up her own business during Perestroika. She had to pay 100,000 Dollars to end up owning the derelict building and the right to trade, including travelling to Germany to bring back some humanitarian aid food donated to the Ukraine. In the end, she found out that her neighbour, who was connected to the government, paid only 11,000 Dollars for the full block opposite. In the end we have to come back in the afternoon to pick up our tickets, at which stage we give up on establishing whether or not we will be able to take the bikes on board with said tickets. ?DAVAI !?

At the decrepit neo-classical styled hotel Passage, our window opens up onto a beautiful 19th century shopping arcade plastered with strings of chubby cherubs and opulent barebreastd caryatids. The guest card is in cyrillic only and we fail to notice rule No 4 about payment deadline. At noon a matron lets herself into our room and gives us a large helping of post communist customer service experience until we finally comprehend amongst her barking that the receptionist has to be paid CEECHAS (now) or else!

Georgia
(Poti-Batumi-Kutaisi-Nikotsminda-Gori-Tbilisi-Davit Gareja-Sighnaghi-Krasni Most)
We ride out to Ilichevk, in good time for the recommended 1pm check-in. At 11 am we roll into what looks like the backyard of somebody's house flanked with two or three port-a-cabins. The headquarters of the Ukraine Ferry Company (UKRferry). A squad of fat women sat on even fatter bags and parcels is firmly posted at the entrance to the check in room. Heavy mustachioed men stand chatting in a sing-songy kind of language and throw curious looks at our loaded bikes. But a little Russian and Johnny's usual dry sense of humour and resourcefulness can go a long way. He manages to convince the meek male employee to join forces with him and get the matron check-in girl to stamp our tickets without eating them both alive. Still, they return from this near death encounter a little pale. At 12 pm we are told that a bus will drive us to the ferry terminal in an hours' time. We try and establish if we could cycle there directly but this appears to be outside the realms of comprehension of the average UKferry employee. At 1.30 pm a rickety minibus rattles in a cloud of dust. We expect our bikes to be a problem (bus drivers usually make a fuss) but relative to the other passenger?s volume of luggage, we are positively lightweight and the driver decides to take Anne and the bags first, then Johnny and the bikes on a second journey. Of course the terminal is only a 5 min drive away but the experience has already revealed how friendly and easy going our Georgians fellow passengers are. There isn't one that won't help lift our bags and bikes out and make sure we have enough space for ourselves despite the fact that they are squashed between our stuff.

At 3 pm we are waiting outside the terminal watching three generation's worth of Georgian families fuss around the mounds of bags, buckets covered with plastic bags, weary shopping carrier bags and basins letting out strong garlic smell. At 4 pm we move our bags around a bit away from the sun which is turning in. Schools of heavy smoking men are squatting on the concrete steps next to us.
At 5 pm we grab some customs declarations, all in cyrillic and entertain ourselves with trying to work out how we might fill the buggers in.
At 6 pm we all pile into the customs antechamber and start dripping commonly in a sauna-like atmosphere.
At 7 pm we work out that it is taking 15 min for each passenger to go through the mysterious customs room. We are still dripping away along with everybody else. We watch nervously as $20 bills are slid inside passports.
At 7.30 pm the creaky door of the customs room closes behind us and a smart and friendly customs guard ignores our scribbled forms and asks us in perfect English if we are smuggling narcotics or carrying fire arms. We answer "no" and move through to get our exit stamp.
At 8 pm, the ship is supposed to have left already an hour ago but we are amongst the first passengers on board. An entrepreneurial off-duty steward locks our bikes away in a storage room for 5 Euros and takes us to the reception desk to get the key for our cabin. It is spacious and has a private, clean bathroom and air-con and will be a heaven of peace and tranquility for the next 3 days, as MS Greifswald makes its way at painstakingly slow speed past the Crimean cliffs and across the Black Sea to the Georgian port of Poti.
Aboard a strict regime reigns, and we get together with a crowd of friendly Georgian truckers at the same dinner table strictly at 8 am, 1 pm and 6 pm. They help us plan our route and advise us on the areas to avoid. One of them, a huge man with a shaven head that looks straight out of prison turns out to be a big softy and invites us to visit his family house in Racha, in the Caucasus mountains.

Our chaotic arrival is symptomatic of the endearing yet maddening Georgian genetic lack of organisation. We wake up on the third morning, expecting to dock at 8.30 am only to find the ship is moored at sea. No announcement is or will be made. We establish through our network of friendly truckers that the docking area is currently occupied by another ship. No idea how long it will take. At 1 pm we are still stationary and are ordered to lunch in the dining room through the now familiar loudspeaker system suspiciously silent about the forthcoming plan to disembark.
At 3 pm we finally start moving again and by 4 pm engage in a slow docking maneouvre into a dock lined with rusty cranes surprisingly small for the biggest port in Georgia. Great, we think, we'll be out in no time. But that's without taking into account the startling inefficiency of the Georgian border guards. Even if they board the ship as we are still maneuvering, we won't manage to get our passports back before 7 pm amidst a shower of totally confused passengers and staff trying to work out who will get theirs next. At which point we realise that we have to disembark with the other vehicles (i.e. trucks) stranded there because the authorities have decided that it is more urgent to disembark the lower deck full of train wagons than the trucks. Eventually we manage to get off, leaving our friendly truckers waiving us good luck (we later learn that they won't be let out before 2am that night!). The sun is setting on MS Greifswald and we have to reassess our plan to cycle the 70 odd km between here and Batumi. At a loss, we ask a grubby looking character on a creaky bicycle if he knows a cheap hotel. The man turns out to be a real sweetie and takes us to a reasonably-priced homestay. The owner is a retired boxing champion who travelled all over the Soviet Union in his time. His wife Mimosa offers us fruit and home-made vodka as they both give us the low down on the economic situation of their country. They get their water from a well because the municipal supply is unreliable. Their electricity comes from a generator 1 km away down the street in order to avoid frequent power cuts. And if we thought that the local monthly revenue of 80 Dollars a month was low, a pensioner we are told has to survive on 25 Dollars a month. Yet in the shops, we find prices similar to those in the Balkans. A loaf of bread costs 50 cents. A pensioner here cannot even afford 2 loaves a day!

We head down to Batumi, along the coast, past a sea container (the local rowing club) where an old man is repairing an old rowing boat. It's cheaper than importing Ukrainian gear, he tells us. Across the river a new rowing club is being builkt. Four horses hoof past in an unlikely gallop. Welcome to Georgia.

We reach steamy Batumi in the mid-day sun, dripping from a stubborn series of debilitating hills. A Pepsi delivery truck passes. Johnny signs that he is thirsty for a laugh and, to our surprise, the truck stops and the two delivery guys hop out for a chat and give us a bottle each of the cool nectar. We usually drink Coke but Georgian Pepsi somehow tastes better than at home.

Leaving the bikes to rest, we go on an excursion to the tropical cliffs of Sarpi by the Turkish border. Unable to read Georgian we wave down the first marshrutka (mini bus) and hope for the best... which turns out to be the worst. First the van runs out of petrol. Luckily, Georgians being an extremely amenable lot, it takes no time to find a fellow marshrutka to give us a tow. Stranded with a van-load of cackling old ladies and squeaking kids, we watch the other van engage in a dubious maneouvre to tow us in reverse because the two vans can only connect at the front. First we are towed into a U-turn in the middle of a bend, then we waddle our way 3 Km down the main road to the nearest petrol station past two pot-bellied traffic policemen (in their new Volkswagon Passat) totally undisturbed by the occurrence.
Finally, just as we start thinking our ordeal is over now that we have filled up, the marshrutka proceeds to head up a series of potholes that doesn't even merit to be called a track, up what you would ski down as a black slope and in completely the opposite direction to where we want to go. When we finally manage to establish that this marshrutka was never going to Sarpi at all but that this is where we want to go, the driver just drives us back to the main road and refuses to charge us at all!

Already starting to warm up to the Georgian's accommodating ways, we cycle north to the village of Vani where archeologists are busy digging one of the richest sites of the country. The tombs excavated there contained thousands of gold pieces, which were connected to the myth of the Golden Fleece (after the local tradition of sieving gold rich soil through sheep fleece). By the time we have admired the exhibits of the small but extremely informative museum, it is too late to get to the nearest town and we are permitted to camp on the site. In the evening the archaeologists even invite us to join them for their evening meal and regale us with home-made cheese and jam and scary memories from the Stalin times.

From Vani we ride to Kutaisi and up to our first real encounter with the Great Caucasus mountains. Nikordsminda in the Racha region. When we arrive in the village having climbed 1,600 m in scorching heat, a police jeep starts trailing us (quite obviously really, as we must be doing about 8 Km/h!). The two policemen get out of their cars as we stop by the village shop to buy some chocolates for our hosts. We are submitted to a detailed interrogatory about our plans and in the end, the policemen find out for us where the house is and escort us all the way to the door. This isn't the best introduction we could wish for to meet an unknown family who, as it turns out isn't even aware that we are coming to visit. Luckily this is the age of mobile phones, even here in the remote Racha region of Georgia and the truth about our identity and intentions is quickly established. Our friendly driver had simply forgotten about us and is stuck with a delivery of cars in Tbilisi. Never mind, his brother and sister in law are on holiday at the family house and will be our trusted guides and translators (from Russian into Georgian for the rest of the family) during our short stay. For two days we will be wined and dined and stuffed with delicious home-made foods straight out of the wood-burning stove. We will be taken to visit the ancient village church, guided to the nearby caves dug into the limestone rock, escorted to the river to bathe and picnic by a happy hoard of giggling children and generally made to feel as we have been part of the family for ever. Never have we experienced a sense of hospitality that comes so naturally and is so unobstuctive. It is humbling and heart warming and of course, extremely difficult to remind ourselves of our visa deadline and move on.

We can safely say that we are the first cyclists to venture on the infamous oxen-ploughed track between Nikortsminda and Sachkhere. Who the bloody else would think of hauling their fully laden bikes up and down gradients of 20-25% in the rocks and mud with only cows and a couple of lumberjacks for audience?
We take stock of the situation that evening sipping our usual noodle soup outside our tent. It has taken us a full day to ride ? well push and haul - the first 30 km. Not sure we can stick to our schedule of getting to Gori (still 130 Km away) tomorrow at this rate of going. But we are in good spirits nevertheless, having managed to find a river where to wash the dirt away from our bodies and souls. At this point a friendly little man wanders in and, fishing some pears out of his pockets as a first offering explains that his neighbours (bemused when we had tried to ask if it was OK to camp in their neighbourhood as they spoke no Russian) had told him there were ?guests? in town. Next morning he is back at 8 am sharp with a bagful of apples and sweetly presents us with a home-made wine jar (slightly cumbersome when you are already logging over 80 Kg worth of gear but then everyone has their own sense of priorities of what to carry on a bike I suppose). The initial promise to show us the correct track to the village is an easy cover up for stopping off at his house and loads us further with ice-cold water and a bottle of home-made wine. We also have to perform the traditional "one for the road", in fact four, as a new glass is poured each time Johnny resets the self-timer for the camera because it is getting harder to get everyone into the picture as the wine keeps flowing.

On our way to Gori that day (we eventually make it with copious helpings of Coke to stave off the heat and help haul us up the mountains), we are first invited to lunch as we stop off to fix Johnny's tyre when the glue of two patches melts in the heat. One of our hosts is the manager of the local lemonade factory, one of the few enterprises still running in this devastated post soviet region. As we dig into large helpings of Georgian raviolis (and specially prepared salad for the vegetarians of this world) he proudly announces that he supports 100 families. Which managers of a plant at home still thinks in these sensible terms about their staff?

We resume our climbs in the blazing heat, kids watching from under the trees rather than engaging in the usual pursuit. At the top of one of these memorable hills, a man simply opens the gate of his garden and waves us in under the trees. His son brings us cool water from the well and fresh pears and figs. We'd love to take them up on their invitation to stay the night but "it is too hot to cycle" doesn?t seem a good enough excuse to risk not making it to Iran in time. Nevertheless this little break takes us to the end of the afternoon when the road finally looks like it wants to descend rather than offering deceivingly short bursts down before forcing us to haul ourselves back up again. We stop by a fountain to fill up, unsure still that we can make Gori before sunset. A lady runs out with some freshly baked cheese pie and two bottles of Coke and instantly revives the hope to make it to Gori, home town of Stalin, and of probably the only museum entirely dedicated to his life.

We make it to the capital, leafy Tbilisi just in time for Johnny to take me to a luxurious birthday breakfast celebration. Suitably treated, we take off to the Russian border, only 120 Km north near the village of Kazbegi using the good excuse of our schedule to avoid cycling up and back down the amazing Military Highway. Perhaps just as well as it starts pouring down with rain that very evening and doesn't ease off for another day. Meanwhile we are sharing a friendly homestay with the worst snorers in the whole of Georgia, two truck drivers on their way to Russia who proceed to starting a fully fledged conversation at 3 am, and then again as they prepare to leave at 6 am. Johnny discovers too late that he has failed to learn the most elementary swearwords in Georgian or Russian, but this is easily compensated by the fact that the F word is almost universally understood, especially when it is accompanied by a grizzly and threatening Johnny straight out of his bed!

Back on the bikes, we head south east from Tbilisi to the troglodyte monastery of Davit Gareja. The asphalt runs out at the top of a steep climb to a military base overlooking a deserted kolkhoze. In the distance, the crumbling soviet factory of Rustavi is still spurting out a thin plume of toxic fumes. We turn and head towards Azerbaijan. The track powders through a burnt steppe, so quiet that we can hear the cattle graze hundreds of meters away. Brown dots on the golden hills. Above us merciful clouds of a leaden grey weigh the sky down towards the hilltops. With still 20 Km to go in this mess of crumbing stones and dust, we run out of water. But is it that we are going to a monastery? God provides us with a couple of Greek motor bikers who fill us up, snap a shot at our weird lot and disappear in a hurricane of gravel.
The monastery lay quietly in wait of the years past, present and future, sunk between two rock faces of smooth, sandy limestone. Three chapels top the summits around the string of caves that hermits patiently dug to find peace and meditate gazing at the mineral expanse beyond the cliffs. Here 6,000 monks were slain by the Persians. Before them, the Mongols sacked the monastery. And yet it still stands.
When we ask for a spot to set up camp, we are invited to stay at the nearby seismic station. From the first floor veranda we watch the house cat chase vipers (another reason not to camp, probably) and a fantastic storm of flashes and thunder that never breaks into rain over this parched landscape. David, the caretaker shares a simple dinner of tomato salad, cheese and fried potatoes with Georgian home-made prune relish and shows us into the rock cave where the seismographic alert system has been set up.

By the end of the next day, we are climbing up to the hilltop village of Sighnaghi. On the village square, panting and at a loss to where to stay, we meet two Israeli students backpacking Georgia on a shoestring. We end up staying with them at the local music school, as they hook up with two brothers from Svaneti heading up a band of cool choir kids who entertain us late in the evening with traditional Georgian folksongs. Needless to say that successive attempts to render Irish melodies or songs from the kibutz of Israel compare rather poorly with the incredible gift and lovingly nurtured tradition of the Georgians. So we just sit, gob open and listen and watch the girls and boys perform and dance, with such apparent ease their gripping and secular tradition.

Perhaps it is another touch of divine intervention that cajoles us into a shady courtyard as we are making our way to the Azeri border of Krasny Most the next day. Until the last moment, Georgian hospitality will prevail. Under a canopy of ripening kiwi fruit, we are gorged with watermelon, plums, pears, grapes, and the omnipresent wine, with cheese, bread and tomato and cucumber salad standing by to soak up the toasts.

Azerbaijan
(Zaqatala-Seki-Lahic-Baku)
As painful as it is, we manage to extract ourselves from this too pleasant situation by 4 pm. By the time we have crossed into Azerbaijan and got to Zaqatala, we are both overheating. As a bloody sun sets into the dry side of the Caucasus, we just about make it in time to the first roadside hotel and under a cold shower. A bucket or two of rose-flavoured lemonade and bubbly water from nearby Qax and we just about manage to recuperate by the next day. Wonder how bad it would have turned out to be without our stop under the kiwi trees?

Brutal heat forces us into a punishing schedule from dawn to mid day, to seek a shady spot between 2 and 5 pm and race to our destination before sun sets around 9 pm. A wrong turn changes our leisurely planned 70 km ride to Seki into a battle against a scorched and windy steppe for an extra 40 km. And as we finally make it to the sleepy hill top town, we have to ride up to the very top in the darkening streets, asking, as you would have done at the time of the Silk Road trade:
"Where is the caravanserai, please?"
and hoping it would materialise before the night fell.
But our efforts are rewarded with a princely stay at this renovated 19th century serai, complete with al fresco dining in a fruit tree and rose garden, and with the best Persian tea house we could hope for. As we sample walnut jam and thyme flavoured tea, reheated on a copper samovar, we lean onto piles of cushions and try to work out if we could by any chance afford an extra day on our tight schedule. We can't. The next morning we leave after visiting the khan's palace hidden behind two massive plane trees and featuring an entire facade of intricate stained-glass windows. We join a local tour group unable to establish if and whom to pay for the pleasure of being shown around the delicate freezes of pomegranate and cypress trees, roses and iris, and the miniature rendering of the Khan's army covering the plastered walls inside.
At 5 pm on our way to Qebele, our temperature gauge still shows 45 C in the shade. We camp at the school, where the kind and curious care taker opens the water pipes and happily floods the neighbourhood for a good hour so that we can wash and cook in comfort.
We cover the first 70 km to Lahic with the intention to have a quiet lunch break at the hotel and restaurant complex on the way up and resuming the climb after the hottest hours. Except there isn't a restaurant. The road turns to an infamous string of potholes and we decide to wait it out under a tree. We realize we can?t make it to Lahic before night. Timely enough an empty truck rocks up and I have little trouble convincing Johnny that it isn't cheating, really because we'll come down that very road the next morning. In the narrow canyon thick layers of rocks are sandwiched between vertical cliffs, wind and river have polished rock columns into near human forms and this stunning wonder of the mineral world comes free of the usual suffering and grinding of teeth of the cyclist obsessed to make it to the top. Bliss!
At the end of the canyon, the riverbed opens wide past a smooth hill where three layers of tin-roofed houses of solid stone await Judgement Day by a half-finished concrete bridge supposed to link it with the outside world. Ah yes, but that was before the Soviet Union collapsed and since, Lahic has gone back to its secular and charming ways. The coppersmiths are hammering away at their pots while their children pump the antique leather blower over the fire. Women wander to the fountains to fill tall copper jugs and plastic buckets. Old men sit at the tea house, under the fig trees, for hours, large, flat woolen berets on their polished heads. The sun has burnt the flesh out of their bony cheeks and given their eyes a demented shine. And they sit quietly, wisely, watching boys race down their donkeys fully loaded with fire wood.

On the road to Baku we camp at another school. The workers renovating the school offer us sweet tea and see that we pile up enough dusty mattresses on the floor of one of the derelict buildings where they also stay, before leaving us to collapse into semi comatose sleep. The infamous wind from the Caspian blows all night and all of the next day as we attack the last set of punishing hills of our short escapade into Azerbaijan. After the heartwarming hospitality of Georgia and its exceptional landscapes, it is difficult to enjoy any country just as much. Azerbaijan is no exception, although when we asked, we found people always ready to help and assist us. It's just that in Georgia, you don't even have to ask!
That said, we are hosted with extreme kindness in Baku, by a friend we made on the UKRferry. Telman takes us in and overfeeds us with Georgian style hospitality he picked up when he grew up in Georgia before moving to Baku.
From the top of the Shah's palace in the old town, we gaze at the oil rigs studding the greasy Caspian. Perhaps it looked less ugly when the Zoroastrian fire temples were still going strong?

The border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, our next country is firmly shut since the recent war for Karabakh. We have just over 10 days to make it into Iran and with no regrets do we load up our bikes onto the "Midnight train to Georgia", back to Tbilisi.
.....

*****

5. Burgas - Iasi via Istanbul
(May19-Jul20/Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

We take the bikes on a holiday to Istanbul. Our arrival at the international coach station immediately reveals the typical kindness and hospitality of the Turkish people. First we (bikes, panniers and all) are smoothly directed through the necessary three time bus change to the right side of town without us speaking any Turkish nor having any idea what is going on. The last leg of this memorable transfer is made in a tiny minibus where passengers squash together to leave space for our stuff. We are then walked all the way to our friend's house, a good 20 minutes from the bus stop by one of the passengers. All with deference beyond the most helpful inhabitants of London or Paris, which are actually smaller...

During the two weeks we will spend in Istanbul this kindness repeatedly charms us, along with the omnipresent cup of Turkish tea. It pursues us inside the thickly carpeted mosques, the dizzying bazaars and on the packed ferries that take commuters (and us) across the Bosphorus "back to Asia", where Tunc's family is kindly putting us up. On the straight, giant cruise ships shrink past super tankers and their mighty wake while in minuscule wooden boats fishermen throw their lines to swarming schools of anchovies.

Between meeting up with Anne's parents (here on a holiday with some friends) we try and make sense of the incredibly untransparent visa application process at the Iranian embassy. By the time we fly to and back from Lyon after Anne's cousin wedding the necessary authorisation from the Iranian ministry of Foreign Affairs, we discover that the best efforts of friends in Teheran to help will come too late. So it is with little hope that we trudge back to the embassy on our last day. Waiting in the stuffy room, my long scarf tightly knotted under my chin, my long pants and Goretex rain jacket gradually turning into my own personal Turkish bath, I think of the numerous travellers who also paid the consular fee yet did not get their visa. "Your visa will be ready on Saturday" I hear. I guess it is closing time and tomorrow is Friday but that's also another one we heard: come back later. I dare not meet the eyes of the consular agent behind the window for fear that my behavior would be judged inappropriate. Johnny politely but firmly explains we are leaving tonight. Any chance we could wait for the visas here? The man nods his thin and noble face. Long minutes later he waives us to the counter and says: "I hope you'll have a nice trip in Iran". And there they are suddenly, our two passports, the much coveted stamps and arabic scribbles neatly printed inside! I think we are both too stunned even to do anything else than slowly grab them and walk out, a massive weight off our chests. That night at the Anatolian restaurant our friend Muge is fond of, I have already left for Asia. But we must return to Bulgaria where we have arranged to cycle with Nic and Celine for a couple of weeks.

So we pick up the road where we left it and ride our longest day yet from Burgas to Varna - 137 Km, over 1400 m cumulative climb to make it in time to meet our friends at the airport.
Our first night on the road is spent overlooking the Black Sea and fighting off hundreds of baby snails firmly attaching themselves to our tents. Across the Vara Veche border our first km in Romania takes us past the perfectly commie-looking but imperfectly preserved concrete blocks of a long string of "people's" sea side resorts named it seems after the various targets of some commie space programme. After passing Jupiter we camp in Venus next to a studiously disciplined gardener in charge of cutting down a foot high overgrown lawn with a wheezy strimmer. We escape to Constantsa, full of hope from a snippet in the Lonely Planet about some Art Deco Hotel. However, it has since closed down with only sporadic evidence of being refurbished at any stage. Luckily the caretaker of the site demonstrated a sense of initiative totally unexpected from a post communist employee. We end up staying in his flat on the ground floor of a house that once had a certain grandeur. Nowadays though, its hall serves as a dining room and the concierge's lodge has ingeniously been converted into a kitchen too small to have a sink. So the bathroom sink also serves as kitchen sink. Luckily there is a boiler and by the time the fourth in the row of our group gets to the shower some hot water is made available. The city we discover displays an unexpected mix of 19th century mansions along with some neo-Turkish buildings. From the minaret of the Grande Mosque, I watch the incessant pendulum of a jumble of crates over the fat bellies of rusty cargo ships resting in Romania's largest port.

Danube Delta (Constansa-Tulcea-Isaccea-Braila)
A heavy and humid heat weighs us down as we venture into the Danube delta. Off the main road, the tarmac is a collection of potholes that somehow have not yet managed to convince the local farmers to convert their cart's wheels to pneumatic tyres. Nor does the appalling state of the surface discourage them from provoking us into bone-shaking pursuits. Nic and his fluoresecnt yellow recumbent are a particular target, when they do not simply cause plain jaw-dropping.

The villages start gathering squat houses along the road with ornate tin roofs. Women in black dresses and scarves and men with bushy beards greet us sometimes in Russian in communities of Old Believers, a schism of the Russian Orthodox Church who fled persecution in Mother Russia. We lunch of polenta and sheep's cheese with tomato and cucumber overlooking the ruined Genoese fortress of Enisala while below us, bright green bee-eater birds flutter over the reeds of a long stretch of marshland. That night we camp in the reeds as the loud croaking of a thousand frogs rises towards a million stars.

In Tulcea, we abandon our plan to ride out along one of the arms of the Danube which is flooded. Instead we embark on "Hope" which sails us into a mysterious labyrinth of channels and lakes which are all part of the world's biggest wet marshland. Our untrained eyes manage to spot over 15 different species from the Penguin's Book of Birdwatcher's and match them with the feathered creatures randomly zooming out of the jungle of willows and poplars rising from the muddy waters.

On the surprisingly hilly road towards the mouth of the Delta, a chunky lad is gaily hauling two canvas panniers thrown over a red mountain bike. Under his woven reed hat a huge smile tears his bushy reddish blond beard apart. Leo exudes a sort of contagious happiness. We follow him into the hills to gather medicinal plants. A colony of pelicans is circling above us, looking for food. We climb along the edge of a field. Here wild flowers are growing everywhere which, In Europe, Leo points out would be destroyed by pesticides. Soon we reach a big bush covered with bunches of tiny pink flowers. With these flowers, he explains throwing them into a cotton bag, you can make a poultice of antiseptic. Big drops of sweat are rolling on his chubby face. He digs into one of his panniers for a bottle of beer and one of water from a local spring. As we drink, he offers to show us a couple of monasteries on the way to Braila.

On tracks more suited to mountain than touring bikes or recumbents Leo first guides us to the house of Marieta and Radu Suciu from the Danube Delta Institute's Sturgeon Research Group. We are invited in for tea and bowls of delicious cherries and wild strawberries. We learn about the impressive fish, a species that dates back from the time of the dinausaurs, can grow as big as a white shark and travels over 600 km upstream to spawn (they used to travel all the way up to Belgrade before the Yugoslav's built barriers along the river). Marieta and Radu arrange for us to visit the first fish farm in the world where the Beluga sturgeon, the most prized, has been bred successfully. Their colleague Marian will show us around the next day.

But first Leo takes us to the monastery of Celic Dere. No sooner had we mentioned honey than Leo had us in a field where bee keepers are hovering around long rows of perhaps hundred hives. They have been camped here since spring and in a month or so will take the hives to the sunflower fields, then later into the delta to buzz around the wild mint flowers. The chief beekeeper is a huge, bearlike character who rather than selling us honey gives us a 1.5 liter plastic bottle of the most pure, wonderful honey we have ever tasted. He invites us to taste it on chunks of fresh bread and wash it down with their home-made prune alcohol. Strong stuff! A little unsteady, we hold onto the top of the beehive where the table has been set and watch one of the other beekeepers, top and hatless, take in a bunch of bees and their queen back into a hive. The honey bear mentions he is looking for opportunities to export his produce so we duly exchange addresses and promise to do our best (send us a mail if you have any ideas).

As we reach the monastery, a serious thunderstorm breaks out. Luckily we are inside the church. A nun in black robes and veil, with a tiny crinkly face disappearing behind huge square glasses, tells us the strange story of the monastery's "self-cleaning" icon. The face of Christ doesn't look anything special at first, until Leo points out the top left-hand corner which looks greyer than the rest of the picture. When it was first brought to the monastery by soldiers, the entire face and neck of Christ were grey. The face became cleaner in sequences coinciding with major advances of world peace, after WWI and then after WWII. Pilgrims who photographed the icon are allegedly also seeing their photographs become "cleaner" also. Today, about a quarter of the icon remains to be clean and Leo tells us that it is believed to happen very soon... Scary?

Well is it was not scary enough, while we are contemplating the icon, thunder is rolling outside. The feeble output of the few light bulbs around the room trembles with each approaching stroke. Then, with a mighty crack, the lightening breaks through the face of Saint John on the ceiling and disappears behind the iconostasis. For an instant reality floats ahead of our sluggish minds. Then we all start to speak at the same time. Careful inspection of the painting reveals no traces of burning and the light bulbs are still operating as usual. Leo is convinced this is a miracle and finds the priest in charge, a tall fellow with an impressive brown beard floating over his black robe. I imagine equally long hair floating down his back, but it is in fact tucked into his square hat. Father Barnabas speaks remarkable English and proves to be quite partial to the Internet, so offers his email so we can keep in touch. After hearing about our trip, he invites us to the monastery Cocos, which is celebrating its feast the next day.

The whitewashed monastery raises its ornate zinc roof over a hilly wood, at the edge of a wide farmed plain. We push our bikes through the impressive gate and into a courtyard planted with roses and lilies. Exacerbated with the heat and thunder, their fragrance raises and mingles with that, more heady even than an enormous blooming linden tree nearby. We wait by the well, in front of the church. Nic tries to teach two curious kids how to ride his "mean machine". Eventually father Barnabas floats in and sets us up in a room on the first floor of the pilgrims' living quarters, conveniently removed from the rather smelly "dunnies" but within easily commute of the communal tap.

Soon a constant rattling of wooden implements (to scare away the devil, remember?) signals that the vigil is starting. Inside the church, women and men are kneeling on the stone floor, women on the left hand side, their heads covered with scarves. The chanting rises and falls, as the assembly incessantly cross themselves, three times and from right to left. In the near darkness, the candle light throws shadows over a large wooden display that people touch reverently, bending and kneeling. It is the reliquaries of the saint patrons of the monastery. The next day they will be displayed outside by the church entrance and a long queue of pilgrims will trail across the courtyard to pay their respects.

Next morning Leo knocks on our door bright and early with a huge smile and a collection of his own home-made instruments that he demonstrates (outside the monastery enclosure) to a fascinated Johnny. He as come from Tulcea to join the choir and excitedly announces that the bishop will arrive soon to say mass. The crowd is thickening around stalls selling religious objects and further down food and drinks. Families are gathering for a special day out and shuffling through the big gate. A queue has formed by a tables set on the gate's side where a monk is busily cashing in against prayer requests. His hands cannot move quick enough. Further along a large table set alongside the church is being piled with cakes, drinks and food offerings for the dead. Inside the church, there is no room for kneeling and everyone is standing wherever they can. The choir's chanting explodes as beardy priests in white and gold burst out from behind the iconostasis where they have been mysteriously hiding and gather around an imposing character wearing a tall silver crown over his thick silver beard. For three hours the chanting goes on as the priests and bishop walk in and out of the iconostasis, with books and candles and incense and while the crowd moves through gently, crossing themselves and touching the ground when an inch becomes available.

The service is still going strong as we leave in the afternoon, having discretely lured Leo from the choir to say good bye and thanks.

On the way to Braila, we stop at Siscaccea, where Marian shows us around the sturgeon farm. The small building is set by one of the arms of the Danube next to an ancient Roman fortress (the Roamanian equivalent to the Limes). Inside Marian shows us the special room where the scientists are studying the baby sturgeon's behavior. Notably the depths at which they dwell and how they swim up. Man still has to understand how the fish manages to climb over high barriers to get upstream to their spawning grounds. This way the fish can be channeled away from man-made facilities such as hydroelectric power plant (one of which wiped out a serious proportion of the population). It is hard to believe watching the tiny fish with their pointy nose that they will grow to the size of a Great White. The Institute has worked out a unique and clever way to protect the endangered species. By tagging all the baby fish, they are able to monitor the population. Rather than prohibiting the catch (and thus encouraging poaching), they have built a database of all the sturgeon caught in the delta. The fishermen can fetch a better price using the database because it enables them to directly offer their catch to international buyers rather than through intermediaries. Thus they get twice the price as that of the black market.
Check out - http://rosturgeons.danubedelta.org

Wine Route to Bucharest (Buzau-Ploiesti)
From Braila we ride over 100 Km to Buzau, cheering at Celine who hangs on, despite the fact that her oversized mountain bike fetches the most wind resistance. It also takes a bit of getting used to trying to slipstream behind a recumbent (particularly since the yellow flag mounted on a flexible pole at its back comes right into your face every second gust!). But despite a few scares and yet another stinking thunderstorm, we make it all in one piece.

As Nic is dead keen to sample some of the foothills of Transylvania we get off the main road and onto a dirt road. As we are labouring up a seep gradient, yet another thunderstorm turns dirt into mud. We throw our bikes in the ditch and shelter under the veranda of a local farmer, debating on the course of action. I have bad memories of pushing my loaded bike through mud, cursing Johnny powering ahead. So I try and suggest an alternative route. But fail. Anyway the farmer reckons it will only take 10 minutes to the top and it's not that steep. More importantly pavement resumes only 9 Km later. Grudgingly I get back in saddle when the rain is over, expecting the worst. However, for once, a local guy seems to know what it means to ride a bike uphill and it turns out that after 10 minutes we reach the top, then after a pleasant ride through grazing land and villages the promised tarmac appears. At the fork a signpost for an intriguing wine route lures us onto a side route, which after a lung-bursting climb and a short-lived exhilarating descent ends onto a mix of rock and mud without, of course, any sign of one of the promised wineries. After a brief debate (to continue or not to continue...) we throw our tents by a stream running through a small meadow off the track. And guess what, just as we realise that the stream is the sort of thermal stream that makes tea (even if completely safe to drink) taste absolutely foul, the skies open again and we finish dinner inside our tents. Great!

The hill I had been trying to avoid the previous day appeared the next morning. And as predicted, Johnny steamed on ahead leaving the three of us stuck in the mud. However Celine's mountain bike proved a good idea at last and she wound herself and her bike up, with a brave smile and her natural good nature. Meanwhile and quite naturally Nic's recumbent, geared up for flat tarmac proved far less useful and my bags quite a lot heavier than my little muscles could cope with. Eventually through the four of us reached the top to find that tarmac resumed and the wineries appeared. We ended our adventure with not one but two impromptu wine tastings, being treated to free samples by somewhat bemused, but rather amenable, wine-makers. Needless to say that we all felt like having a well deserved rest when we finally rolled into Bucharest, the following day.

Leaving Nic and Celine sight seeing, we go off on a wild goose chase for the elusive Ukrainian and Moldavian consulates. Several taxi rides later and after queuing for an hour in front of a blunt Ukrainian concierge, we manage to establish that:
(a) We don't need visas to enter Ukraine until September thanks to the country hosting the Eurovision song contest recently, and
(b) It is too late to make it to the Moldavian consulate (conveniently located at the opposite end of town from the embassy) today.

We while away the evening enjoying the free wine over curry before Nic and Celine ride out to the airport to make their ridiculously late flight back home. We hug and wave and the next minute they are gone, too fast for us to really say how special it was to share these two weeks of our long trip with them. Thumbs up to you both!

Next day we go out to the airport to meet Johnny's mum and sister who are joining us for a long week end. Together we visit Bucharest's "Palace of the People", the extravagant marble palace dreamt up by Ceausescu. Or should that be "Palace of the Person"? The story of its building is riddled with ridiculous facts, such as the fact that Ceausescu could not cope with miniature models. So everything had to be made up life-size in plaster for him, and needless to say within ridiculous deadlines. One example is that of the supposedly "least tiring staircase in the World" which the dictator had copied from a palace in Italy I think. The stairs were rebuilt fifteen times in life-size plaster before being carved out of solid marble, by hand. And the worst is that I found them just as tiring as any other stairs!

The long week end is over too quickly and after loading up Ann and Pier with souvenirs and collecting our Moldovan visas (it took us longer to figure out where to get them than to actually get them!) we ride out north to the Transylvanian mountains.

Transylvania (Sinaia-Brasov-Sibiu-Sighisoara-Iasi)
One wonders how Transylvania became this dark land of vampires in our collective mind when in fact it is but verdant high pasture land dotted with extravagant baroque spires above the rugged skyline of the Siebengebirge. Peles Castle is a classic example of this fiefdom of the Saxon knights. Near it we meet "300 Km Bruno", an impressive German cyclist who just pelted down the Danube from Stuttgart to Budapest to tour Romania with his girlfriend Isabelle. On one day he managed 300km along the Danube. What a man! As if we needed any reminder that the Tour de France is starting just now! (In fact finding a TV for the "Etape" becomes a major variable in our route planning).

Fortified with a couple of days of Eurosport Live and a 120 Km day we attempt the highest summit in Romania in the Fagaras Mountains. We leave from about 700m under radiant sunshine to pitch our base camp on a 2,500m ridge with a 360 view on the range. Next day for sure we'll make it to the top, says we, shoving our emergency bottle of Coke in a conveniently close pile of snow. That's what we call camping in style! Alas the weatherman had decided otherwise and by 7 pm we batten down the hatches as blustery gales of rain try and crawl inside our tent. A quiet patch revives our hopes. Johnny bursts out "bottomless" to satisfy the call of nature and take in the stunning views over the valley. But next morning the storm has settled in and we back down, descending in just 4 hours what we climbed in over 7. Next day, our aching legs give in each time we try and stand on the pedals... OUCH!

Only 7 Km from Sibiu, we stumble over a couple of shivering Spanish cyclists who have just descended from the Transfagaras Road, one of the highest in Europe. (Damn the local mountaineering shop who insisted it was still closed with 4m snow at the top!) The Spanish "A-Team" (Alvaro and Alicia) don't take long to convince, with the help of Cora(a friendly local architect who is putting them up) to take a detour via Sighisoara. Our mini peloton chases potholes along strips of corn and potato fields and dumpy haystacks. Women in white linen dress and crimson embroidered aprons smile from the door steps of their low roofed whitewashed houses. Men wave black felt hats leaning on their scythes outside pretty houses in long one-street villages. And the children try to catch us in fits of laughter skidding in the dust on their oversized bikes.

In Hosman, Johann shows us around our first fortified church and sends us to Apold where Sebastian lets us camp in the yard of our second. The Saxons who built its square clock tower and the thick defensive walls around it and painted the naive frescoes around its baroque organ emigrated to Germany after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The remaining communities, often orthodox and Gypsy communities are watching these gems of Romanesque and baroque mix slowly crumble. Finding post-war Germany is a far cry from the ideal Vaterland the "Summer Saxons" build huge holiday houses in Transylvania, and want evangelical services to be in German, even if they are the only ones who remember how to speak it. It takes the likes of ethnic German or Hungarian volunteers like Johan and Sebastian to turn this around. In a post communist country where self-initiative has not yet become a way of life they battle to inject new life into the decaying churches and return them to their former glory as village center points. They need every bit of support (financial but also in kind) they can get. Please visit the websites below to see how you could help - www.coronaberlin.de

In Sighisoara, Sebastian gives us the address of an NGO that works with orphans and children with learning disabilities. Foundatia Luminata Copiilor has renovated a traditional house and rents out a great apartment that partly funds the foundation. The day after Alvaro and Alicia depart, we are very glad of this peaceful retreat as Johnny comes down with a stinking flu.
Whilst Jonny uses it as an opportunity to see the latest Etape du Tour, I use the opportunity to visit the lovely Saxon fortress and its picturesque clock tower. (The clock displays a metal statue representing a Roman divinity for each day of the week, e.g. Saturn for Saturday). I discover that the father of the modern space rocket went to school at the hilltop school. I wander through the cemetery filled with romantically overgrown tombstones displaying German-sounding names.

Four days later and the mind filled with images of the Tour de France climbs in the Alps we ride to Sovata. A group of seven Spaniards on a cycling holiday invite us to share their late lunch. We learn from their guide about a nearby salt mine. Next day we join hoards of families armed with picnics and badminton rackets, pile into an antiquated articulated town bus and descend 406 m underground. The old galleries of this massive salt mine (the vein is 2.7 km deep and 1.4 Km wide) have been converted into a sort of underground kingdom or playground. Many people apparently come here to cure respiratory diseases, which given the damp climate above must be common. On a Saturday the place fills with families seeking the cool and dry air. The place is absolutely heaving, but the ceilings are so high and the galleries so wide that it doesn't feel cramped at all. We visit the small chapel, the only one I have seen to accommodate three religions in turn, orthodox, Lutheran and catholic. At the small museum we learn how the salt was mined in the old day, as huge shells of the stuff were carefully wedged out of the galleries and hauled up to the surface with cow-powered lifts.

Back on the road, we learn from a couple of Hungarian cyclists (I have never met so many cyclists in such a short time) that the pass we are heading to lacks tarmac for at least 25 Km. Never mind, we power on and doge more potholes. Past Gheorgheni we ride through the gob-smacking Bicaz Gorge with vertical cliffs of grey rock falling hundreds of meters down into a raging river. Past Bicaz we ride along the very scenic Lake Izvorul Montelui and meet a family of four Dutch (guess what) on a bicycling holiday. Not only are they riding a tandem but they also happen to know two Dutch friends of ours we met 5 years ago when we were riding in Latin America... Small world!

Soon we are pelting downhill. The damp rainy days of Transylvania are over and it is whizzing along the scorching plain to Iasi just before the Moldovan border that we ride our 10,000th Km. Hard to believe that it has been that long already!
.....

******

4. Dubrovnik - Burgas
(Apr 5-May 18/Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

The Pearl of the Adriatic clings to our wheels with its old fortified walls emerging from the sea. First while Jonny makes a 24 hour bus roundtrip to Zagreb to get his bottom bracket tightened(which takes 5 mins!!). Happy to be off again, our escape plans are again foiled, as after only 16 km, Anne's back rim splits on an arduous climb - AHHHH! This time our trusted Stephen (of www.Bike-Express.hr and Jonny's old school....)in Zagreb acts as an intermediary to get the new wheel built and sent on the overnight bus. Try getting that service back in Blighty!

Montenegro (Kotor-Budva-Bar)
We discover the true pearl of the Adriatic in Montenegro. The deepest fjord in Europe lays undisturbed amidst sheer rugged cliffs and a few centenary olive groves. In one of them we pitch our tent as the sun casts a burning spell on the copper dome of Our Lady of the Angels set in the middle of the fjiord. It seems to float over the inky water but in fact stands on a shipwreck over which passers-by piled up stones over the years until they could build the church.

The hilly coast takes us to another prime campspot, inside a ruined orthodox monastery overlooking Bar bay. The road hangs over the coast for a while then cuts through hilly grazeland. The spikes of minarets point in the distance and sometime the weathered stones of an old muslim graveyard. As we wait for a wrinkly old woman in a white scarf to steer long haired goats across the road a furious Mercedes scatters them with furious honks. Albanians on their way home.

Albania (Shkodra-Tirana-Pogradez)
The customs officer hauls his belly out of his wooden cabin. His curiosity is purely limited to matching our passports with the countries listed on a poster inside.
'You pay 10 Euros'
Suspecting a gross abuse of power, Johnny wanders into the hut to check the poster. But it is all official and legal and actually had we read our Lonely Planet we might even have saved the officer practicing his English!

Smooth tarmac leads us along a wide, muddy river. Huge houses and whitewashed minarets dot the green valley. Near Shkodra, tables sprout up on the grassy .bank. Under the willows black, shiny Mercedes are crouching. Across the bridge, a fortress of grey boulders crowns a rocky hill.

Appearances can be deceptive. And it seems Albania is big into appearances.
The bridge is in fact a patchwork of shaky planks and a line of derelict houses borders the dusty path on the other side. As we pass by, a school of grubby kids burst out, waiving and laughing. At the next turn, we are thrown in a total chaos of trucks, honking busses, roaring Mercs and clueless pedestrians. Our battle into the city centre is the sort of overflow of unfamiliar stimulus that stretches time beyond its real boundaries. Cultural shock requires adjustment so we head for the ex-commie hotel Zefara.

While I get the ultimate bargain of a double room for 10 Euros (only to later realise later that 'no bathroom' means not even a shared one. Luckily the adorable floor attendent lets me use the bathroom of the "luxury room" for free) Johnny meets the Bosnian boxing team and we end up watching the all Balkan boxing finals where the recent confilcts are played out again with a referee and a lively crowd....

On our way out of Skhodra we stop at a petrol station looking for an Albania sticker. Several men gather to try to understand what we are on about. There are no stickers but the attendant hops onto his bike and returns waiving a nice sticker a few minutes later in a very typically hospitable Albanian gesture.

We ride to Lehze to Mussolini's hunting lodge. The building of dry stone and wooden trunks is falling to pieces in parts, but Mentor, the athletic waiter goes the extra mile and brings a heater, a large gaz bottle and a candlestick to the "Dictator's Suite". He is such a nice guy! And the lunch under the trees is great. We have a fits showering by candlelight in the glow of the very dodgy gaz heater. So refreshing not to be bothered by things like health and safety standards.....

Albania is grubby but the people are so friendly it is impossible not to love the place. We find a few havens where appearance matches reality: Tirana's Sky Club is one example. We sip raki (local fire water) at the revolving bar watching the sun go down on the snowcapped peaks. From here you can almost forget the dodgy finishing of buildings, the potholes and the scum and imagine you are on top of a swish and modern metropolis.

From Tirana to Lake Ohrid, we ride 125 Km and climb 2,000 m over the day. At a small dusty town before the ultimate climb, the entire male population gathers around us while we look for water. In front of the shop, the men, thin and strong with jet black hair and serious faces peak at our maps. One of them speaks a little English and relays their questions and our story. When Johnny comes out of the shop he is a little taken aback but it couldn't be safer here. Although the country's code of honour may generate family feuds that decimate entire clans but to harm a guest/visitor is believed to doom the family of the perpetrator.

Macedonia/Belgrade/Kosovo
We roll out of our scenic campspot overlooking the wide expanse of Lake Ohrid and down to the shore. The road to the Macedonian border is littered with funny concrete mushrooms (one-man bunkers that the former dictator Enver Hoxa had tested by placing the designer inside before shooting at them with a tank!).
At the monastry of St Naum the chapel to the orthodox healer saint preserves its original religious purpose. The whitewashed monastery overlooking the deep blue lake has been tastily converted to a hotel complex. Our big lunch there isn't the ideal preamble to the hilly ride that takes us to the other side of the lake. But we finally haul ourselves to Ohrid.

It is orthodox Easter and the lovely family who runs our hostel take various degrees of interest to the event. The mother takes us, boiled egg and candle in hand, to the midnight service at the local church, while "Mimi" the father, an hilariously grizzly retired steel union worker stays home stating he is "a communist" (and therefore -obviously- doesn't do religion).

Perhaps our best riding so far follows the river Cm Drim north through the Mavrovo national park to the monastery of Sveti Jovan Bigorski. We join a community of orthodox monks, nuns, and pilgrims for the after-Easter service. The massive crown-shaped chandelier throws its oscilating halo on the gittering iconostasis. Over 200 characters carved in its dark wood tell the intricate story of St John the Baptist in local shapes and forms. The psalms and lithanies of the crowned patriarchs rise in a penetrating jamine-scented incense. People drop in to kiss the icons (and leave a few bob) while a monk on bell duty exits the premises in an all important manner. At the end of the service we are invited to join the congregation and collect a coloured boiled egg from the priest. While we cook dinner in the lodgings' kitchen, we answer the questions of a small crowd of visitors, curious about catholicism. Amongst them, Vesna and Srjan, a true Balkan couple. Srjan is half Turkish, half Serb while Vesna is a Macedonian slav whose mother at first was quite weary of Srjan. We immediately hit it off together and later, in Skopje, we visit Srjan at home. Our new friends laugh at the account of the 8 hr side trip we took by bus with no airconditionning to see Belgrade - an unmissable piece of the Balkan-puzzle. They take us to the Roma neighbourhood of Shutka and set up a meeting with a Roma NGO in Kumanovo. [The Roma minority scattered around the former Yugoslavia often find themselves without citizenship of the new break up Balkan countries. Entering the EU, a dream for most Balkan countries, will not go through without an improvement in their social condition.]

In Skopje's old Turkish quarters we spend a couple of hours at an Albanian barbers' who shouts across the road for some Turkish tea. A second barber who has just returned from a few months in Germany reveals that:
(a) that the local economy is 'kaput', a fact delivered with a toothless grin hardly in sink with the gravity of the situation (the price for Macedonia's independence in 1991 was apparently that the Serbs took their assests with them.)
(b) that Kosovo is totally safe (this confirms what the Macedonian embassy in Albania told us)

Entering UN administered Kosovo from Macedonia, the UN border guards do not stamp foreigners' passports. As the Serbian government does not recognise the UN administration, if you attempt to cross into Serbia with no entry stamp the Serbian border police will consider that you have entered "their" territory illegaly and send you back. We avoid the issue by taking a day trip to Prishtina the capital of Kosovo by bus from Skopje.

In Kosovo the Albanian flag flies everywhere, next to the American and the German one. Along Bill Klinton (sic) boulevar, posters advertise the Swiss lottery and all the concrete high rise blocks are riddled with satellite dishes all pointed to the Albanian satellite transmitor.

Outside a high security fence guarding a collection of brand new, white jeeps, stamped UN in black letters, three bronze statues of famous Albanian children: Mother Theresa and two warriors of the Albanian cause (one only lived to his 30s and stands in full guerrilla outfit and arms).

Old men wearing funny white cloche-shaped hats lie on the grass under the trees of the old town mosque and past the bizzarre steel nets and plastic bulbs of university library, we find the empty shell of an orthodox church. A line of Mercedes honk past us, towels stuck under their wipers. Tightly dressed women are sat on the open window while the drivers' biceps bulge under a huge Albanian flag. This is how weddings are celebrated in the supposed cradle of the Serb nation.

And if you want to see what Norwegian soldiers get up to on the long days on duty, check out the Big Boys video!

Back in Macedonia, we move on towards Bulgaria. In Kumanovo Bakshim, the trainer of the local cycling club immediately invites us to stay in his home. The show of hospitality is once again humbling. A new facet of Macedonia appears while we flick through his pictures of the recent guerrilla war. (Albanians took arms to campaign for civil rights). In the large sitting room, Bakshim's wife Gizme serves us Turkish coffee, while we look at the ruins of their first home, shelled by the Macedonian army. The entire equipment of the cycling team including the carbon fibre bikes burnt down in the process. Then Bakshim worked on building sites in Switzerland to save up for the new house.

At the monastery of Kriva Palanka, a friendly giant, Darko, who speaks pretty decent English helps us convince the caretaker to take us in. I escape to bed leaving Johnny to get acquainted with the "local whiskey". His new friends leave and he hasn't stumbled up to bed more than 10 minutes than a great voice resounds at the door: "Johnny, you come and drink beer!". Darkan is back!!!

Bulgaria (Sofia-Kazanlak-Burgas)
We ride our longest day so far into Sofia: 130 Km, 1,500 m cumulated climb. And to make things better, a thunderstorm breaks out as we hit the final descent (by then I had given up hopes for a descent), and we have about 5km to do on cobblestones!!!

In Sofia's posh cafes and busy covered market we almost believe in Bulgaria joining the EU in 2007. But on the road the horses and carts and mud brick houses soon come to nuance this first impression. The European banner flies on every building but the Euro notes come only on sugar packs and the Gypsy neighbourhoods are closer to Bombay than Brussels.

We ride through a series of valleys shut off by stubborn passes. Villages are few and far between and forest crawls up the massive backdrops of mineral giants to their foggy snow caps. Sometime the ugly remnants of the communist urbanisation pierce through the wild unspoilt territory. Will they ever become the Roman ruins of the 20th century?

In Veliko Tarnovo, the former capital of the Bulgarian kingdom a few old Turkish houses have survived, some turned into souvenir shops. The Tsarevets fortress rises above the cliffs, defiant testimony of a nation obsessed with celebrating its independence from the Turks.

Beyond the Shipka pass, rose fields spread in a wide valley. In Kazanlak the workers of the rose distilling plant are busy cleaning for the annual rose festival. After a few enquiries, a huge lady appears to whisk us through the small museum. In perfect English the amenable character spells out the history and statistics of the cultivation of the Rosa Damascena from Persia which expensive oil is almost entirely exported to France's perfume makers. On our way out the straight-faced porter produces a gentle smile as he presents me with a blooming frangrant rose.
Further East, the valley turns into massive wineyards. From surprisingly pleasant Sliven we ride 115 Km against the wind and fast and furious drivers to Burgas and the Black sea. The sun is leaning on the harbour cranes as we pull our bikes through the sand for a celebratory shot, 8000 Km into our journey.

It seems we have only scratched the surface of the Balkans's mosaic of people and places. Perhaps it is a perfect introduction for our next 6 months, the Northern Black Sea, the Caucasus, Iran and Central Asia. When we will feel both slavic and muslim influences, witness the legacy of centenary ethnic conflics and experience the grim legacy of the former Soviet Union.
.....

******

3. Ljubjlana - Dubrovnik
(Mar 05-Apr 05/Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

Across the Slovene mountains, corn husks hang down wooden racks and big smiley men are axing down some of the dense fir forest to replenish massive log piles next to their cosy cabins. At the spa village of Dolenjske Toplice, we soak in the heated open-air swimming pool surrounded with snowcaps summits almost forgiving them their brutal gradients. To get through to the 'Wellness Centre' we have to abandon our swimming suits and hold on tight to the thankfully big sheets provided. Everyone else lets it all hang out in the steam baths, saunas, Japanese pool and jacuzzi. When emerge three hours later, weak and lightheaded but thankfully only 9 Euros a head lighter to slip into our tent the cleanest we have ever been after a long day in the saddle!
The first rain since we left Nice soaks us right through on the way to Zagreb. After over 100 Km, we hit an endless maze of 70's housing estates somehow suspecting that we are going around in a big circle. We are. Eventually, we find our way to the centre and its mix of squat medieval, gilded baroque and grand 19th century buildings. Dodging furious trams, we run into a cyclist on a fancy bike who turns out to be an old boy from Johnny's school. Stephen and his Croatian girlfriend Sonja started the first bike courier company in Croatia. On Easter Monday they take us to a spa village in the hills above Zagreb. The heated pool is packed with wallowing fat ladies and couples busy petting. Everyone is so obviously enjoying their day out that it is difficult not to join in. As we are sweating it out in the sauna (this time with swimming suits) a lady walks in completely naked. No one seems bothered and soon everyone in the overheated cubicle knowns about our trip and wants to find out more about it. The German lady's partner with huge moustache and matched gold chain pours some water onto the coals. A penetrating smell of pine essence fills the tiny room as the temperature shoots right up. Waving his towel around for more effect, the man tells us he has brought the water all the way from a thermal town in Germany. When we can bear no more we take a break at the cafe (still in our swimming suits). Over beer and sausage stew (delicious fresh cottage cheese for the vegetarians of this world), we talk about the war and the struggle to convince ex-communist enterprises to turn to new services such as bike couriers. After dark, the pool is floodlit so we carry on soaking as the crowd thins out.
We leave Zagreb with new bike courier company (Bike Express) T-shirts on, some home-made apple strudel and fond memories of our late encounter. At last Croatia touched our hearts with the straightforward and direct ways of a people still able to enjoy simple pleasures.
Riding eastward, corn and wheat fields line up in narrow strips along the river Sava. The water has risen halfway through the trunks of the tall willows on its edge and in places licks the derelict fences surrounding shaky-looking wooden farmhouses. We get talking to Yaska and Gretchka as we are desperately trying to find a shop to buy water at the end of a long day. We end up camping in the unfinished bedroom of their 215 year old family farmhouse. The storks have returned to their nest on top of the massive oak beams that are so old and thick they won't even burn down anymore. As we sit in the shed over our pasta, the family turns up in turn to spend some time with us. They pour us local white wine and plum brandy distilled with their own 'happy machine'! Much more tasty than the sour wine an old man has so kindly given us at lunchtime on the side of the road! The people who remain in the countryside are so friendly it is hard to believe a war has torn this area only 10 years ago. But few remain. Most have gone to Zagreb or abroad.

Almost immediately across the Bosnian border, Igor a TV journalists interviews us and then takes us in for 2 nights. Quick witted and bright, Igor unveils a new facet of the war to us. We hear how dodgy dealings rather than military strategy dictated the advance of the armies and how local economy is sometimes hindered by cheap EU imports that prevent it from rebuilding itself.
On our way to Sarajevo, we climb an eery dirt road past a shelled Croat village, its burnt out ruins an open scar across what must have been such peaceful countryside!
Snow is melting on the mountain passes and the rivers are raging with a clear and turquoise water. Minarets are sprouting more and more on the roadside, along with heartbreakingly numerous new Muslim graveyards. In Travnik a local Muslim cyclist informs us that there are 19 mosques for 1,900 believers! In Sarajevo the simple marble pillars used as gravestones by Muslims crawl up the hills around the deep valley where the old Turkish town rests. We stand on the medieval fortifications, red tiled roofs stretching across the new graveyards and listened to the imams calling for prayer as the setting sun lights up the tower blocks of the new city in the distance. From here we can just about make up "Snipers' Alley" and the revamped the facade of the Holiday Inn (the only hotel that stayed open during the war and where all the reporters stayed). Across the road, a tall tower block has been left with the holes of the shells that burst through its walls.
We loose ourselves in the narrow alleys of the bazaar, sip Turkish coffee through a sugarlump, dig into chewy Turkish delight and mouth-watering baklava. As we surrender for an extra day to the delightfully sophistication of this near orient one remnant of plannified economy still lingers: street sellers oppose a blunt refusal when we try to negociate down the grossly overpriced brass coffee grinders.

On the day we ride out through the breathtaking canyon leading to Mostar blustery rain and gales are desperately trying to throw us off the bikes... and succeed (in my case) as we are making our way through one of the many unlit, long and bendy tunnels along the way! Anyone for extreme sports?
In Mostar an invisible line still parts the Muslim from the Croat towns. The historic (and symbolic) bridge that once linked the two parts was shelled by Croatian military during the war. A video of the shelling we watch at the local museum has me in tears. For now I fully realised with what resilience the armies of this conflict set out to destroy the very flagships of their own civilisation. Whether the Balkan people realise it or not their very culture lies in the mix of peoples who have lived in the region for so long.
The now reconstructed historic bridge leads to the rather provocative Roman Catholic cathedral which grossly oversized belltower seems designed to thwart the local minarets. A massive cross has also been erected on top of one of the surrounding hills still heavily mined.
Truly taken by beautiful and complex Bosnia we decide to stay on this side of the border as long as we can. So after visiting the Marian pilgrimage site of Medugorje (and listening to a talk by one of the 6 visionaries that still has daily visions of Mary) we head across more brutal mountain passes to Trebinje. The road climbs over masses of layered limestone that thousand year old convulsions raised to vertical ridges. Next to these titans, painstakingly patiently erected dry stone walls seem steams of white pebbles. They border tiny fields of a rocky soil that years of stubborn manual labour have cleared to grow tortured vines. The giant mountains part onto a long plain. Here the villages are scrambling up the mountain sides to let the fields stretch further along the plain. Shepherds show us a mine-free camp spot. Drivers hoot and honk encouragement. Farmers wave from the roadside. Wild flowers burst through grazing land in patches of vivid purple and yellow, buzzing with furry bees busily gathering fresh pollen for the multicoloured hives of the orthodox monasteries. A monk his head and long beard covered with a beekeeper's hat hovers around them in his long black robe, a smoky tin in his bare hand, harvesting the golden sweet honey. The local baklava, needless to say is a true delight!

Alas the border is nigh and we have to turn our back to wonderful Bosnia an head back to Croatia to join the flocks of cruise-ship passengers visiting 'the Pearl of the Adriatic', Dubrovnic. Here the war is only a bad memory, a set of new tiles on some roofs and a few road signs indicating USAID or EU funded this and that.. But it is doubtful that the money poured into the region has successfully addressed the fundamental antagonisms we have discovered still live in the hearts of the Balkan people. Young Serbs still say they want to be part of Serbia and a Croat will prefer to serve you Italian rather than a Turkish coffee. Muslims are busy erecting mosques as if there was no tomorrow. And the UN peace-keeping jeeps are haring up and down the country with long faces while Paddy Ashdown parades, finally in charge of a country even if it is not his own.
But to us what we have seen so far of the Balkans is a fascinating mix of cultures and influences. Bosnian people in particular have a natural hospitality often lost in more visited countries. We'd come back tomorrow!

******

2. Nice - Ljubljana
(Feb 05-Mar 05/ France, Croatia, Slovenia)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

I should have known not to go up that pass...

For two days a historic snow storm has schools and motorways shut down and strands us in Genova. We don't really need the extra days' rest given the many of Anne's cousins who took us in on the way to the Italian border...

But soon a radiant sun melts down enough of the snow to tempt us to cross over Paso Bocca into the Po valley and towards Venice. By lunchtime we have already climbed 700 m along the scenic and hilly coast road. We gulp down a couple of focaccias at a bakery and turn in towards the pass. When we start climbing there is no sign of snow anywhere in the valley. We climb steadily for 10 km. Dripping under the sun, I make out a cloud scraping the top of the mountain. It's only a little one Johnny says. It can't be that bad up there. At km 15 we are under the "small" cloud which drops quickly turn into snowflakes. Nothing our waterproofs can't handle. At a tiny road side cafe about 5 km below the pass the snow falls is coating the road. We buy some water hastily. If we wait too much longer we might not be able to cross onto the other side. A blizzard is now piling on the snow on our Barma hats and over the road. We unclip our feet from our pedals to control the bikes sliding manically each time we lose the tracks. A couple of cars pass by. Hoots of encouragement die quickly in the howling wind. Our breath heavy and sweat dripping under our waterproofs we push on, desperately. We should be here now according to my clock. Ah here's the sign. In a half dream I read we have another 2 km to go. Bloody Italian signposting. I gather myself together. There's no point in stopping and no time to do so right now. A tiny, miserable sign eventually appears. We are over 1,000 m up. Johnny wants a photo stop, of course. A car stops to ask if we are OK. (Why would two lunatics be OK standing in the snow waiving their camera?). On the other side, the snow is much thicker. My hands jammed on my brake levers I can't even feel my shoulders tightening. Johnny stops. Am I OK? I can't even answer coherently for my body has started shivering so badly I can hrdly bring the bike to a stop. But I hear myself mutter that everything is OK. All I can think of is tha we have to go down. Otherwise we'll get stuck here, in this bloody snow. Ignorng my protests Johnny forces me into extra layers of clothes and runs around in the snow with me for a little while. The shivering momentarily halts. We get back in saddle. All the way he stays with me. All the time he talks to me: "don't use the brakes so much, use the snow to slow down the bike... Pedal backwards to keep warm'. We descend painstakingly slowly. A few times I end up in a pile of snow for failure to grip the levershard enough. An eternity passes... (in reality maybe half an hour?) Then, suddenly, nesteled inside a curve,a village. A cafe. Men drinking their Sunday away. Heavy looks at this pile of snow with her funny hat tumbling down this other pile of snow. Maybe women aren't allowed in here? I don't care. I could kill for a nice cup of tea right now.
The rest of the journey is relatively uneventful. We zoom through the North of Italy via Parma, Mantova, Padova and bypass Venice on our way to Trieste. The food of course is divine and perfect for hungry cyclists. The grand architecture impresses us. And we love Italian motorists. They are so mindful of cyclists.

From Trieste we cross into Slovenia (where the first person we meet, the borderguard, turns out to be a keen cycle tourer! It's the friendliest boder crossing we've had of many.) and the North of Croatia. We follow the coast of the Istria peninsula, sleep under the stars and get into some hilly countryside. A strange mix of Roman and Soviet monuments lay our way along with olive groves and centenary cypresses. Between Pula and Opatija a wild and rugged coast that plunges straight into the limpid sea gives us a glimpse of what Istria probably was before the soviet era of mass tourism and 'autokamps'. Human presence is limited to scarce hilltop villages and their dry stone walls huddling around a square church tower.

Across the mountains and beyond the border, the verdant alpine countryside of Slovenia enchants us. Here the temperature drops down to 1C one morning we camp in a tall pine forrest. Under our feet lays a bizzare network of caves (in Postojna) where limestone is slowly dripping through the ground to form fantastic shapes. Above the surface, the forest sometimes gives way to grazing land and small baroque church spires. Almost without a warning we find ourselves in the capital. Ljubljana - the loved one - and its peaceful river along which a newly born cafe society is enjoying the spring sun. Above our heads a medieval castle jealously guards this tranquility. We grant ourselves a couple of days rest before venturing towards Bosnia & Hercegovina.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Postojna Caves (amazing network of >20km limestone caves with all sorts of formations, stalegmites/tites etc.)
• Ljubljana (beautiful architecture, relaxed, friendly locals speak good English, decent grub)
• Miramar Castle overlooking the bay ofTrieste. Beautiful 19th c. castle built by Maximilian of Habsburg. A cracking site, wonderful furniture and real atmosphere.
• Genova. Lively city with good mix of history and modern daily life, i.e. not too touristy. We loved Taverna di Columbo (Vico de la Sienza) for lunch.
• Cycling Pasco di Bocco between Genova and Parma (maybe in the snow?)

1. Ireland - France
(Sept 04-Dec04/ Ireland, France)

(Click above to see slide show - then click in each photo to get description)

A quick update on our cycling adventure from Ireland to Mongolia. We have now made it to the South of France near Nice to be with Anne's family for Xmas. I hear you wonder: "Is this on the way to Mongolia?". Not really but the 4,211.32 km (approximately!) we put behind us through Ireland, Wales, England, Jersey and France were good training, good fun and an opportunity to meet up with family and friends. And, against all odds not as wet and cold as we might have expected.

And, for the more statistically inquisitive amongst you:

• Total time in the saddle to date - 232 hrs 45 mins (no major sores to date....)
• Average speed - 18 km/h
• Maximum speed - 74.8 km/h (chasing a motorbike)
• Total altitude climbed - 25,459 m (so there were a few hills)
• Total days on the road - 89
  

Please don't forget we are cycling for Cancer Research UK. Why not make a donation .... ALL money goes direct to Cancer Research UK. Your sponsorship will put wings on our wheels and help the CRUK scientists to carry on using genetic research to find better ways to treat and prevent cancer. Thanks for all your support past and future and keep in touch.