It's back on like donkey kong (whatever that is?)

"Only when we remove ourselves from the problem, do we find the simplest answer." After a frantic 10 days of adventuring around in Kyrgyzstan which included but not exclusively, A horse, A pair of skis, A hot spring and more snow than an Eskimo's freezer, we find ourselves back in Kazakhstan (Almaty to be exact) with a fresh, new outlook on life. Last time I wrote on this blog I had given up on the realistic possibility of cycling back the the UK. Instead I looking at flying back to the UK from Moscow and finding my own way once again...  But after deliberating the possibility of finishing the trip on my own, as well the discovery that we can buy a different pannier rack for Laura's bike that would work, the trip almost looked like it was ready to be re-started. Like all great deals there were clearly negotiations to be had, and compromises to be made. Laura (known as "The Bolt Buster of Kazakhstan" for her uncanny ability to shear two bolts in two weeks, one of which she did by simply tightening by hand) said that we should have front panniers. "This will even the weight out on the bike, stop us from overloading the rear racks and hopefully stop us snapping more bolts." I said that we should have studded ice tyres "because ice is scary and falling off hurts!"  With these strict and uncompromiseable decisions being agreed upon, we booked our tickets for the train to Moscow. From there we will head up to Saint Petersburg and this is where we will restart our cycling journey of 2000km through Scandinavia. So its back on!!  And like all good commitments, no front panniers or studded ice tyres have yet to be brought... typical. 

The karma cat of Kyrgyzstan

As I awoke this morning in a lovely hostel in Almaty Kazakhstan. I was feeling excited. Today I knew that Laura and I would temporarily be leaving the bikes at the hostel and be heading to Kyrgyzstan for a spot of walking and skiing amongst other things. Like a child on Christmas Day I quietly and slowly removed myself from the bottom bunk of my bed, as I couldn't lay here any more. I decided that a morning coffee would be in order. As quietly as I could possibly be, I unintentionally made lots of noise in the dark room looking for our bag of fresh coffee.  I scampered out of the 8 bed dorm and towards the stairs with an overwhelming feeling of pride for my ninja-like abilities. My plans were quickly scuppered by a four legged assassin, by the name of whiskers. This little grey genius had decided to lay a trap for me that I could not have anticipated in the slightest. He had decided to lay the equivalent of basically himself all over the brown laminated floor above the stairs about 30cm away from his litter tray. He had managed this in what can only be described as land mine effect all over the floor. As I walked to the top of the stairs in my bare feet, one of the assassin's strategically placed traps decided to mould itself around my big toe in a squelching fashion. As this happened I made a noise of "awwwww" without thinking and probably managed to wake the entire hostel.  After washing my foot with a lot of soap in the sink and muttering many rude words to describe the little bugger. I then decided to remove the funky smelling trap from the top of the stairs with a tissue, only to find a now adoring cat turning up and rubbing it's self all over my leg, seeing what the fuss was all about, and as if to make a point that it couldn't have been him. But as a cleaned the mess away to stop any one else from having a nasty surprise in the morning. I couldn't help but wonder if this was the work of Karma.  A great filipino friend explained to me once that for good and evil to co-exist they must be equal. So for every good thing that happens to you, there must be an equivalent bad thing too.  The biggest point to remember is that the karma doesn't have to be equal sized, for example a large bad thing can be repaid in lots of small amounts out good things.  Maybe the little ninja cat was trying to give me some bad luck so that I can have a good luck on this next part of our trip? 

Is This The End??

The story starts 2 days ago near some neighbouring mountains in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Laura and myself were riding down an extremely iced over road into a local village to pick up some food before carrying on a petit cycle tour around Almaty. Spirits were high and plans looked ok considering they were contingency ones. While riding I notice that Laura's pannier rack (the part fitted on the the bike to hold all the bags) was loose on one side. On closer inspection what I had feared the most. The bolt holding the rack had sheared in the frame. We took the bike to the local shop where we tried to drill the broken piece out with no luck, I think even if we had we would have struggled to re fit the rack. With the danger of the aluminium frame getting damaged due to how thin it was in that area. We have to make a decision not just on the bike but on continuing the trip. The influences... When we were in china not being able to buy fuel was a huge impact on the trip that we could never have foreseen. We had to go into contingency funds that we had budgeted but we blew that due to large unavoidable expenses. Now we're in Kazakhstan earlier then expected and due to both Russian visa entry dates and Kazakhstan visa lengths we have to deal with more issues.  Basically we have to leave Kazakhstan, go to Kyrgyzstan and then come back again... All with money and time that technically we don't have...  On top of this we're further south then we were ever meant to be, we would have to get a train/bus north with money and potentially time that technically yet again we don't have.  All the above results in cutting our trip down even more then we already had to. This is not taking into account any hidden costs involved from the trip into Russia and the rest of our trip.  Pheewweyy this is complex.  The final decision...  When we planned this trip we wanted to do it together, we wanted to cycle tour and camp in amazing places. We also wanted to push ourselves both mentally and physically and learn about our own limitations. However because of the reasons above we are no longer able to achieve what we set out to, and so we have decided to no longer carry on with the tour. Of course I am gutted and disappointed but I have enjoyed every moment, and I truly hope that every one who has ever watched a video, shared a comment or read a blog post has enjoyed the trip too.  The future... Well "The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift. That's why we all it the present." Let's wait and see. I'm not on my way home just yet..... 

Moving On...

That's it China visa finished, stamped and all... 

yahoo!!

 It's not that I didn't like China... 

I just wanted more... 

Well more to cycle to be exact, I simply decided that this relationship; well... it was never going to work out. "it's not me it's you" with your overly controlling ways, fuel issues and constant frisking. So like in so many typical soap opera's, Laura and I left slightly heart broken and destined to find a new love... maybe Kazakhstan. 

Yesterday afternoon we left, packed up our bikes into big green sacks, put them on a sleeper bus and left for the boarder. 

The next morning we awoke to yet another random police road check where we had to show our passports. After this a quick drive down the road and eventually arrived at the border control. We proceeded to unpack two large sacks of bikes, 2 pannier bags and 2 massive rucksacks too. As we were doing this laura got asked if we wanted a trolley, she asked me and with out thinking, still mucking around with Thor bikes I said "yerr that would be great". Suddenly a little man appeared with a black leather cap, a long black coat and black leather shoes. He popped the bikes on a trolley with a few of the bags too. Laura tried to ask "how much ?" The little man just shrugged the question off with lots of words that made no sense and as she tuned to me to question should we do this? He was gone in a flash.

Rookie Error... 

Later on we managed to find our gear dumped in a corner, trolley now gone and the little man searching for us. He said "money" and jested with his hands. Ironic I thought the only English word he knew. The larger concern me and laura had was that we knew we only had come across the border with ¥100 which we knew wasn't a lot but that's good budgeting for you, (equivalent to about £10) 

The little man still quite chirpy drew with his finger on the wall ¥100 for me and ¥100 for laura. All most instantaneously laura and I said "no". He wanted ¥200 for pushing our stuff the equivalent of 500meters. So with a few with a few "cannot's" and "no money's" along with a few less sensitive words muttered under our breath, the little man left with all our cash and a sad expression upon his little face. 

I wonder if that was China's settlement few for our breakup? 

Ahh well, we're in Kazakhstan now !! 

P.s.

Travelling on bikes = amazing 

Traveling with bikes = interesting...

The Simpler LIfe

As I lie here on a comfortable bed with soft white sheets, I can feel the embracing warmth coming from the radiator next to me. I also hear the distilled sound of traffic from the window and every now and then the dramatic noise of fire crackers from down the street. It is Chinese New Year today and this is day 3 in a hotel in Urumqi, a large city in the north west of China.

I don't want to be here though.

I want to be back out on the road where we're meant to be.

I was so glad to be in this amazing hotel on Thursday afternoon. Now however it's Saturday and this hotel in Urumqi couldn't feel more agonising.

It sounds so strange to be fantasising about waking back up in a tent, my sleeping bag would be covered in ice. Then Laura and I would heat up the water from flasks that had gone cold from the night before. We would drink a cup of tea as the sun would rise, then eat some sort of boiled food before packing up the tent and hitting the road.

I want to feel the pure pain when I finally warm my fingers back up in my gloves and feel the freezing air flow though my helmet while I am being stunned by the incredible scenery. I don't want to be in a warm hotel worrying about buses and trains...

One of the biggest underlying issues with being stuck in a big Chinese city is that we're blowing our budget. This is generally on sleeping and eating but we can't get a cheaper hotel because they must have a "special licence" to accept foreign guests. Hostels also tend close in the winter as we found out in Turpan earlier last week. I can only deduce that tourism reduces when it's -10 degrees Celsius. We also can't pack up and live in a tent because we have no fuel, so can't heat any water or food up.

I must exercise my ability to be  patient and just let life do its thing  and soon we will be back out on the road.

I can't wait!!

A Spanner in the Works.

When Laura and I set out for this trip we planned a few critical parts... heat, water, food. We knew that we couldn't carry them all for the whole trip so below are our tactics to solve the problems. 

In terms of food for the trip we planned to carry emergency food that would be enough for 3 days. This is in case of storms or mechanical break downs. The emergency food comprises of chicken feet, weirdly packaged fish, some pickled vegetables, rice and pasta. The idea behind these weird and wonderful delicacies is that it should be stuff that we don't really want to eat, meaning we won't eat it accidentally while hungry, it will also entice us to carry enough food or find some quickly. With our normal food we make sure we have enough for the distance between town to town, which usually means carrying another 2-3 days of food. 

We knew that we also couldn't carry enough water so we planned to always stop and camp by lakes and streams. Then we would boil water and carry some with us in flasks too. 

The last thing was fuel. We decided to buy multi fuel stoves back in Hong Kong. This is the type that you can use both gas and petrol with. We did this so that we had lots of freedom in terms of what we can use to burn. Between us we had 5 canisters of gas knowing that we would need to fill up along the way.

This is where the plan goes tits up... due to an unforeseen issue that we don't truly understand. I will try and give you the basic outline...

All of the fuel stations in this province of China have security at them. When the locals fill up their cars they have to go through a few processes. First, all of the passengers must get out of the car, then the security search the car and open every door. After they are happy, the driver must swipe a fuel card (that Laura and I don't have) before eventually being allowed to fill up with fuel. 

We have tried our best puppy dog eyes to try and get some petrol but the security guards are having none of it.

Without petrol we can't heat up ice to get water and we can't cook food either. 

You might be thinking to your self "why don't you just buy gas or white spirit and carry it with you". Unfortunately it's not that easy to get hold of, and almost every main road has police checks along it. Depending on the traffic controllers' mood, they would happily take any gas or fuel away from you meaning we would be stranded with no fuel. 

Until we solve this problem, we are stuck in a lovely warm hotel room... so it's not all bad. 

Not the China I expected

As we walk under the blue tarpaulin held up by long pieces of sun-scarred wood, we walk past an older, weathered-looking lady behind a stool with a scarf over her hair and a large jacket. She is selling some fresh vegetables. While she is beckoning customers to come and have a look at her wonderful fresh food items one thing becomes clear. This is not a style of language I ever expected to hear in China. The sounds I could hear seemed to flow more, it had less negative inflections at the end of sentences. The sound was definitely more familiar to my ears than the mix of Cantonese and Mandarin I had heard before in the Hong Hong bazaars. I would almost recognise this new language I could hear as a  European one if I didn't know where we were. 

It turns out that there is a local dialect used Xinjiang province, this is called (Urghur) 

I feel a little lost but Laura had clearly done her home work. While ordering local delicacies like a stuffed bread, she would use words like "Rach-mid" meaning "thank you" and "misleke" meaning "tasty". We can speak Mandarin to the locals however they respond more positively to Urghur.

I must say I felt like a little bit of a tourist, letting Laura talk to the locals and order our food. However for me there is no greater kick up the bum to improve than to see it for your self. So my resolution for the next few days is to learn some local language, and quickly.