Crackin' photographs ... a great read 
Super Loopy
- Thread starter monkeyboy
- Start date
From Trazbon we go west to Samsun. It’s wet, windy, dull, and miserable. My mood that is. I'm starting to feel properly shit now and I keep having random hot flushes which instantly bathe me in sweat. The other riders are keeping a distance in case its the C word. I eat on my own, use lifts on my own, just generally keep my distance just in case. The ride to Samsun matches my mood exactly. It's flat and featureless, straight and bland.
Samsun looks like a big bag of Lego buildings has been tipped out onto the ground. Even here there doesn't seem to be a beach. The hotel is on the water so I go for a wander, leaving a regular series of big sweat patches on the ground so I can easily find my way back.
Brian and I go on a food hunt but there isn't much about where we are. But Brian could find a cake shop on the moon ..
I need something settle my stomach and dredge my bowels after all the stodgy crap I've eaten the last few days so I do a tour of the supermarkets until I can find some cereal. I buy a family packet and eat at least a colon's worth for my tea.
In the morning I need to clear my stomach of air so I go wandering the abandoned streets accompanied by the sound of breaking wind until I get my 'last warning' fart confirming there's one in the chamber.
I'm riding alone today for a change. Brian wants to wander about and relive some memories of a visit here with his late wife many years ago. I'm on auto pilot all day long, running in 'keep alive' mode. Set my body a target and ask it to get me there as safe as it can. I'll leave it up to my body to decide which parts to prioritise and which parts it can shut down for a few hours. We've all done it. We've all ridden feeling like absolute shit and just counting down the miles. I remember hills, I remember lakes, I remember my botheredometer reading a flat zero all day long.
I get to Bolu first for a change as I've just stopped once for fuel and nothing else. The hotel smells like someone has dropped a family size packet of shake-n-vak on the carpet and the room has no AC but it has a shower and I stand under the cold water to try and bring myself slowly back to life then go out hunting for some milky medicine and wait for the others to arrive.
We're minus one again. I call Just-Eat but they don't deliver Brians around here it seems. An hour later I get a text telling me he is about 100 miles back and has a puncture. He's stuck a plug in it, even though its a tube, which I suspect will only make it worse, and he's got some kids to go and hunt for some tyre seal too. He should be with us some time in 2025. A few hours later as I'm sat in the shade I hear the familiar beat of the AT and Brian pulls in. I think his rear tyre is 10% air and 90% tyre weld but he has got here thank God. We'll see how it holds up overnight. We're still a long way from home and we need all the luck we can get so I decide to employ something from the spirit world.
Before taking some riders from London to Bangkok in 2016 an American rider presented me with a biker bell. Not something I was familiar with but they're quite common in the USA apparently. Supposedly the brake down demons hate the sound of a bell ringing. Who knew. When I was wondering about earlier I saw a tool shop just up the street. The second I walk in I see what I want. He sells jingle bells. Proper Santa spec jingle bells. Jingle bells are the absolute best for this job. Of all the bells in all the world the demons hate jingle bells the most. Can't go anywhere near them. Santa's sleigh is covered in them. Have you ever seen him broken down on the M25 waiting for the AA? No? Exactly!
I buy a couple for me and Brian and head on back to the bikes to affix them. I'm going to sound like an epileptic Morris dancer riding down the road but I just don't care.
The cold shower seems to have breathed a bit of life into me as we head out for some dinner. The town is having some sort of celebration and there is a band setting up where we're eating. They sound pretty good too.
Dinner is absolutely shit. It's disgusting. It's £2. It's left on the plate. Back to the supermarket for more cereal and cake.
There is a small hammam hidden in the corner of a square just outside the hotel. It's little domes poking above the trees. I wonder if a hot sauna and a severe twatting by a hairy bloke in a skirt will beat whatever is wrong with me into submission. At the moment anything is worth a try. I'm up early and first one in at 7am. Its a really old place with old wooden steps shaped and worn nearly to the point of extinction. I've given up caring about getting naked nowadays. It all goes with the 'these people will never see me again and I don't give a fuck' attitude my brain seems to have degraded into. I'm given a small towel to cover my embarrassment, even though I could manage with a much much smaller one, and I'm led through a narrow and low set of corridors to the sauna. It stinks of socks and blokes bodies. It's like sticking your head in a teenagers clothes basket after its been in the microwave. I lie still, close my eyes and imagine all the little viruses getting hotter and hotter, getting agitated, starting to panic , packing their little bags and preparing to evacuate. But it's me that has to control my panic.
I usually can do 10 minutes or so and I have to get out but I bet I've been in here a lot longer than that. My body desperately wants to flee. Maybe it's the little viruses trying to break into my brain and take control of my limbs. I'm fidgeting and twitching and soaked in sweat but I've convinced myself this is what I need to do so I battle it out until eventually I'm collected and taken to the bubble torture chamber. A super heated steam room with a few flat surfaces to lie on. I can make out other bodies and hear the constant splashes of water, slaps of hands on flesh, grunts of bodies on the edge of tapping out. I see hands full of bubbles and then I'm gone. I feel fists and elbows and feet and knees working over my body for a good 30 minutes before being water boarded and slapped on the back to leave. A hammam is definitely the way to start the day. I feel almost human. It's going to be a good day. And what is the price of this pleasure I ask. He says £4. I give him £10, a smile and a handshake.
After breakfast we all head out. The others are all gone by the time Brian and I saddle up and head out. His tyre pressures were fine this morning. I'm hoping for an easy day.
That lasts for about 2 miles before Brian's tube decides it's had enough. Fuckidy tits knobs and arse bubbles.. this is just what I needed. And before anyone says anything, Santa doesn't have tyres and can't get punctures. I know... I've got a spare tube haven't I .. we'll just fit that. Ahhhhh.... if only you were riding a Ktm 1190 Adventure S and had a front wheel puncture Brian we would be out of here in no time. I'm such a fucking idiot..
At least we're not too far from town. I load my mental map from my walkabout and remember a scooter type shop not far from the hotel. I just throw Brian's back wheel on top of my tyres and leave him to sunbathe for a while. Get to the scooter shop and its not what I thought it was. It doesn't sell tubes or fix punctures. As far as I can see its a shop where you go in and just watch some bloke surf his phone all day. He hits pause and walks me across the road to another random shop where the bloke speaks English and such is the way out here he jumps into his car and scoots off to what looks like a refugee camp on the edge of town where they should be able to help me.
They can't help, but they know a man that can and I watch Brian's wheel just disappear into the chaos on the back of a quad.
And while I'm waiting in their air conditioned workshop drinking a complimentary vanilla latte and custard slice I have a long chat to their newest Afgan mechanic about the variable valve timing on the new Shitter200 he's working on.
By the time I get the wheel back to Brian we've lost a few hours, it's steaming hot, and whatever recharge the hammam gave me this morning has run out. I think I was teleported to Istanbul, I don't remember too much about it.
Brian reckons his tyre is still deflating slowly so we need to try and find a new tube. I make the mistake of asking one of the bellboys at the hotel if he knows anywhere local. He reckons he knows a place and can take me there on foot. By the time we've walked about 100m I know he's chatting shit and winging it. My temper is shorter than an oompa loompa at the moment and its also on automatic so I just stand and listen like an observer to myself as I explain in plain English how I'm not fucking walking round every single shop in Istanbul asking every single fucking dozy brain dead twat if they know somewhere I can buy a new tube. That he has stepped on my bullshit tolerance mine and can either make his way quietly out of my field of vision as soon as possible or risk being blown apart in a rabid tirade of spit and bile.
Thats another hotel I wont be allowed back to ..
Anyway.. we waste a couple of hours getting a taxi and a new tube before getting the ferry across the Bosphorus.
I'm not in the mood to go manual and walk so we grab a taxi and slowly drift through the clogged arteries of this ancient city towards the Blue Mosque.
I've only really come over the water because I need a shave and the best one I ever had was in a place really close to here. I've promised Brian a wet shave because he's never had one. I go for a hunt around but either my old memory is playing tricks or the barber is no more.
As I'm walking my tottieometer acquires a lock and I follow it to an open window where a young woman is reading. I take the picture before asking. Before she can put on a different face for me. Its usually the case in my experience that the first picture is the best anyway. I'm gone and out of her memory before she gets to the bottom of the page.
As I take the picture I hear someone calling me from down the hill. A shabby barber is toting for business from outside a grotty little shop. Destiny calls it seems so we make our way down and settle down for a face full of scars and scabs.
I'm as guilty as the next man by judging a book by its grubby, warn, stained and torn cover and in this case I'm happy to be proven very wrong. The barbers are a couple of real jokers but their skills have been honed and perfected on thousands of hairy faces to the point where they can glide a deadly blade a micron above your skin with one hand while shaking hands with the next customer with the other. Its like a shaving circus and the result is just as good as any I've had. My skin feels like cellophane. Perhaps I should go back to the girl reading the book and get her to close her eyes and run a fingertip across it ..
The sun is falling and I grab a taxi to take us back to the ferry where it looks like Hitchcock has decided to film a remake of The Birds.
Looks like we've booked the sunset cruise tonight. I just sit and watch the light dance on the water and chase around the scene like a brush covered in wonderful golden paint.
Samsun looks like a big bag of Lego buildings has been tipped out onto the ground. Even here there doesn't seem to be a beach. The hotel is on the water so I go for a wander, leaving a regular series of big sweat patches on the ground so I can easily find my way back.
Brian and I go on a food hunt but there isn't much about where we are. But Brian could find a cake shop on the moon ..
I need something settle my stomach and dredge my bowels after all the stodgy crap I've eaten the last few days so I do a tour of the supermarkets until I can find some cereal. I buy a family packet and eat at least a colon's worth for my tea.
In the morning I need to clear my stomach of air so I go wandering the abandoned streets accompanied by the sound of breaking wind until I get my 'last warning' fart confirming there's one in the chamber.
I'm riding alone today for a change. Brian wants to wander about and relive some memories of a visit here with his late wife many years ago. I'm on auto pilot all day long, running in 'keep alive' mode. Set my body a target and ask it to get me there as safe as it can. I'll leave it up to my body to decide which parts to prioritise and which parts it can shut down for a few hours. We've all done it. We've all ridden feeling like absolute shit and just counting down the miles. I remember hills, I remember lakes, I remember my botheredometer reading a flat zero all day long.
I get to Bolu first for a change as I've just stopped once for fuel and nothing else. The hotel smells like someone has dropped a family size packet of shake-n-vak on the carpet and the room has no AC but it has a shower and I stand under the cold water to try and bring myself slowly back to life then go out hunting for some milky medicine and wait for the others to arrive.
We're minus one again. I call Just-Eat but they don't deliver Brians around here it seems. An hour later I get a text telling me he is about 100 miles back and has a puncture. He's stuck a plug in it, even though its a tube, which I suspect will only make it worse, and he's got some kids to go and hunt for some tyre seal too. He should be with us some time in 2025. A few hours later as I'm sat in the shade I hear the familiar beat of the AT and Brian pulls in. I think his rear tyre is 10% air and 90% tyre weld but he has got here thank God. We'll see how it holds up overnight. We're still a long way from home and we need all the luck we can get so I decide to employ something from the spirit world.
Before taking some riders from London to Bangkok in 2016 an American rider presented me with a biker bell. Not something I was familiar with but they're quite common in the USA apparently. Supposedly the brake down demons hate the sound of a bell ringing. Who knew. When I was wondering about earlier I saw a tool shop just up the street. The second I walk in I see what I want. He sells jingle bells. Proper Santa spec jingle bells. Jingle bells are the absolute best for this job. Of all the bells in all the world the demons hate jingle bells the most. Can't go anywhere near them. Santa's sleigh is covered in them. Have you ever seen him broken down on the M25 waiting for the AA? No? Exactly!
I buy a couple for me and Brian and head on back to the bikes to affix them. I'm going to sound like an epileptic Morris dancer riding down the road but I just don't care.
The cold shower seems to have breathed a bit of life into me as we head out for some dinner. The town is having some sort of celebration and there is a band setting up where we're eating. They sound pretty good too.
Dinner is absolutely shit. It's disgusting. It's £2. It's left on the plate. Back to the supermarket for more cereal and cake.
There is a small hammam hidden in the corner of a square just outside the hotel. It's little domes poking above the trees. I wonder if a hot sauna and a severe twatting by a hairy bloke in a skirt will beat whatever is wrong with me into submission. At the moment anything is worth a try. I'm up early and first one in at 7am. Its a really old place with old wooden steps shaped and worn nearly to the point of extinction. I've given up caring about getting naked nowadays. It all goes with the 'these people will never see me again and I don't give a fuck' attitude my brain seems to have degraded into. I'm given a small towel to cover my embarrassment, even though I could manage with a much much smaller one, and I'm led through a narrow and low set of corridors to the sauna. It stinks of socks and blokes bodies. It's like sticking your head in a teenagers clothes basket after its been in the microwave. I lie still, close my eyes and imagine all the little viruses getting hotter and hotter, getting agitated, starting to panic , packing their little bags and preparing to evacuate. But it's me that has to control my panic.
I usually can do 10 minutes or so and I have to get out but I bet I've been in here a lot longer than that. My body desperately wants to flee. Maybe it's the little viruses trying to break into my brain and take control of my limbs. I'm fidgeting and twitching and soaked in sweat but I've convinced myself this is what I need to do so I battle it out until eventually I'm collected and taken to the bubble torture chamber. A super heated steam room with a few flat surfaces to lie on. I can make out other bodies and hear the constant splashes of water, slaps of hands on flesh, grunts of bodies on the edge of tapping out. I see hands full of bubbles and then I'm gone. I feel fists and elbows and feet and knees working over my body for a good 30 minutes before being water boarded and slapped on the back to leave. A hammam is definitely the way to start the day. I feel almost human. It's going to be a good day. And what is the price of this pleasure I ask. He says £4. I give him £10, a smile and a handshake.
After breakfast we all head out. The others are all gone by the time Brian and I saddle up and head out. His tyre pressures were fine this morning. I'm hoping for an easy day.
That lasts for about 2 miles before Brian's tube decides it's had enough. Fuckidy tits knobs and arse bubbles.. this is just what I needed. And before anyone says anything, Santa doesn't have tyres and can't get punctures. I know... I've got a spare tube haven't I .. we'll just fit that. Ahhhhh.... if only you were riding a Ktm 1190 Adventure S and had a front wheel puncture Brian we would be out of here in no time. I'm such a fucking idiot..
At least we're not too far from town. I load my mental map from my walkabout and remember a scooter type shop not far from the hotel. I just throw Brian's back wheel on top of my tyres and leave him to sunbathe for a while. Get to the scooter shop and its not what I thought it was. It doesn't sell tubes or fix punctures. As far as I can see its a shop where you go in and just watch some bloke surf his phone all day. He hits pause and walks me across the road to another random shop where the bloke speaks English and such is the way out here he jumps into his car and scoots off to what looks like a refugee camp on the edge of town where they should be able to help me.
They can't help, but they know a man that can and I watch Brian's wheel just disappear into the chaos on the back of a quad.
And while I'm waiting in their air conditioned workshop drinking a complimentary vanilla latte and custard slice I have a long chat to their newest Afgan mechanic about the variable valve timing on the new Shitter200 he's working on.
By the time I get the wheel back to Brian we've lost a few hours, it's steaming hot, and whatever recharge the hammam gave me this morning has run out. I think I was teleported to Istanbul, I don't remember too much about it.
Brian reckons his tyre is still deflating slowly so we need to try and find a new tube. I make the mistake of asking one of the bellboys at the hotel if he knows anywhere local. He reckons he knows a place and can take me there on foot. By the time we've walked about 100m I know he's chatting shit and winging it. My temper is shorter than an oompa loompa at the moment and its also on automatic so I just stand and listen like an observer to myself as I explain in plain English how I'm not fucking walking round every single shop in Istanbul asking every single fucking dozy brain dead twat if they know somewhere I can buy a new tube. That he has stepped on my bullshit tolerance mine and can either make his way quietly out of my field of vision as soon as possible or risk being blown apart in a rabid tirade of spit and bile.
Thats another hotel I wont be allowed back to ..
Anyway.. we waste a couple of hours getting a taxi and a new tube before getting the ferry across the Bosphorus.
I'm not in the mood to go manual and walk so we grab a taxi and slowly drift through the clogged arteries of this ancient city towards the Blue Mosque.
I've only really come over the water because I need a shave and the best one I ever had was in a place really close to here. I've promised Brian a wet shave because he's never had one. I go for a hunt around but either my old memory is playing tricks or the barber is no more.
As I'm walking my tottieometer acquires a lock and I follow it to an open window where a young woman is reading. I take the picture before asking. Before she can put on a different face for me. Its usually the case in my experience that the first picture is the best anyway. I'm gone and out of her memory before she gets to the bottom of the page.
As I take the picture I hear someone calling me from down the hill. A shabby barber is toting for business from outside a grotty little shop. Destiny calls it seems so we make our way down and settle down for a face full of scars and scabs.
I'm as guilty as the next man by judging a book by its grubby, warn, stained and torn cover and in this case I'm happy to be proven very wrong. The barbers are a couple of real jokers but their skills have been honed and perfected on thousands of hairy faces to the point where they can glide a deadly blade a micron above your skin with one hand while shaking hands with the next customer with the other. Its like a shaving circus and the result is just as good as any I've had. My skin feels like cellophane. Perhaps I should go back to the girl reading the book and get her to close her eyes and run a fingertip across it ..
The sun is falling and I grab a taxi to take us back to the ferry where it looks like Hitchcock has decided to film a remake of The Birds.
Looks like we've booked the sunset cruise tonight. I just sit and watch the light dance on the water and chase around the scene like a brush covered in wonderful golden paint.
It sounds weird but leaving Istanbul feels like we're nearly home. Heading back to the surface. Back to reality. I'm lucky to avoid it for such long periods. I have a really good life and wife waiting for me at home though. I'm a very lucky bloke indeed. Jesus if there is any justice I'll come back in the next life as a piece of toilet paper.
We're running fast for home now but we just want to take a small diversion on the way north. Early start out of Istanbul to get out of turkey and into Bulgaria and Euroland.
God only knows how many borders my old Ktm and I have been through together now. She's certainly earned her Adventure badge anyway. I wonder how many trips are left in her sometimes. She'll have over 70k on when we get back . She really rattles her old bones when she starts up but soon settles down to a deep purr. I do love that bike.
Add one more official signature to my helmet and we're back in and ready to go.
We stop for lunch in a random square in a random town trapped in a time warp. It feels a bit like Russia with decoration running approximately 50 years in the past. Still, it has food and pretty girls. After the stupid cheapness of Turkey the price of life back in the EU comes as a real shock though.
Tonight's destination is just a small provincial town. I should do more of this. Visiting the places your finger just flies over on the map without stopping when you're planing a route. Somewhere that is usually just there to provide a fuel station on route to somewhere bigger and better. Its a really nice little town built on the usual old Soviet model of a huge fuck off square in the middle, brutal blocks of concrete, monuments and girls in pretty green dresses.
We're heading for Moldova. A consolation prize for not getting into Azerbaijan. Another chance to put a face to a random country on a map, and to keep the riding mojo going as long as possible before life's reality bat hits us all in the face.
We're riding up into Romania to be close to the border so we can enter tomorrow. It's bloody hot and getting hotter as we go north. Another function of the upside down climate we're living in. It's definitely not helping my sweats.. perhaps I'm going through the manopause..
Another border, another language, and another name for my lifeblood milk.
I don't know what to expect from Moldova. I rather suspect the place hasn't got two turds to rub together and will be on its arse. At the border we're greeted by two lovely ladies with big smiles who are even willing to sign my helmet if I push it gently into their small opening ..
For a while it's just as I expected. Either vicious road acne or roads made of sand pits. If it's like this all the way it's going to be a long day. Small villages. Subsistence living. Living with their legs astride the poverty line.
We shouldn't be on this route anyway as it runs close to the southern Ukraine border, which I find out for myself as I make a wrong turn and arrive at a border post .. ummmmm... I do these things so you don't have to .. and because I'm a knob.
We stop in a small town for a drink and to find some cash, my first priority when entering any new country. We're so used to form over function nowadays. Buildings that look like cheese graters or giant glass jenga towers or cruise ships flying high in the sky. Architects determined to use every function on their new CAD system to produce ever more ridiculous trendy buildings that are out of fashion by the time they are completed. Out here its strictly function over form. Basic and brutal.
Every country has all its unique nuances that identifies itself and Moldova is no different. The thing that strikes me here most is the dress. In a small town like this in Russia you would see women wearing clothes you'd only see on a TV in black and white at home but here the girls are all wearing nice bright colourful summer dresses and looking really good. Really feminine. I could not give a flying fuck if that makes me old fashioned or chauvinistic or it doesn't fit in with whatever the bed wetters are tweeting, I think women in dresses looks nice. So sue me.
Oh, and the bus stops too. Another personal stamp for a country. Christ only knows what the archway is for though.
Get to Chișinău and its quite a big city. It doesn't look at all bad to me. There is a lovely lady on reception that speaks perfect English and we have a long chat. She's trying to buy a flat and she says she much prefers the older Soviet style ones to the more modern ones. She reckons the build quality of the new places is far inferior to the traditional older places. I wasn't expecting that. The new ones must be spectacularly shit if thats the case.
I go and exchange some more funny money for milk by yet another name and take a quick wander.
And see what I mean about the dresses... though it does help if you have the figure of an olympic gymnast
We ask the receptionist what we should see while we're here and she directs us to the Cosmos Hotel in the centre of town. A good example of brutalist architecture when the architects only had a few simple tools they bought cheap at a car boot sale, and even then they don't seem to have used all of them.
TBH I quite like it. I'm tired of characterless shiny glass boxed same old same old Grand Designs clones everywhere. It's good to give my eyes a change sometimes, and it just reinforces that feeling of being somewhere different.
Then you're quickly reminded that some of the human race loves to crawl and climb over the others and to wave it in peoples faces
When I eventually get back to the hotel with sore and aching feet I'm met by Brian and his dead phone. The other morning I heard his old Samsung telling him that it had decided to identify as an IPhone from now on and wanted to be addressed as Siri. So Brian has taken it at its word and shoved something in an inappropriate hole and now its buggered. Despite it being at least 3 centuries since he was born, Brian breathes WhatsApp and is already having withdrawal symptoms. It's a serious situation and demands immediate attention and we go to the google assistant on reception for advice. She reckons there are some phone trading shops not far away. Perfect.
Brian and I find a shop and in true British style get completely ripped off for £30 for a phone that was probably born before I was. Still, Brian's happy and thats all that counts.
We're running fast for home now but we just want to take a small diversion on the way north. Early start out of Istanbul to get out of turkey and into Bulgaria and Euroland.
God only knows how many borders my old Ktm and I have been through together now. She's certainly earned her Adventure badge anyway. I wonder how many trips are left in her sometimes. She'll have over 70k on when we get back . She really rattles her old bones when she starts up but soon settles down to a deep purr. I do love that bike.
Add one more official signature to my helmet and we're back in and ready to go.
We stop for lunch in a random square in a random town trapped in a time warp. It feels a bit like Russia with decoration running approximately 50 years in the past. Still, it has food and pretty girls. After the stupid cheapness of Turkey the price of life back in the EU comes as a real shock though.
Tonight's destination is just a small provincial town. I should do more of this. Visiting the places your finger just flies over on the map without stopping when you're planing a route. Somewhere that is usually just there to provide a fuel station on route to somewhere bigger and better. Its a really nice little town built on the usual old Soviet model of a huge fuck off square in the middle, brutal blocks of concrete, monuments and girls in pretty green dresses.
We're heading for Moldova. A consolation prize for not getting into Azerbaijan. Another chance to put a face to a random country on a map, and to keep the riding mojo going as long as possible before life's reality bat hits us all in the face.
We're riding up into Romania to be close to the border so we can enter tomorrow. It's bloody hot and getting hotter as we go north. Another function of the upside down climate we're living in. It's definitely not helping my sweats.. perhaps I'm going through the manopause..
Another border, another language, and another name for my lifeblood milk.
I don't know what to expect from Moldova. I rather suspect the place hasn't got two turds to rub together and will be on its arse. At the border we're greeted by two lovely ladies with big smiles who are even willing to sign my helmet if I push it gently into their small opening ..
For a while it's just as I expected. Either vicious road acne or roads made of sand pits. If it's like this all the way it's going to be a long day. Small villages. Subsistence living. Living with their legs astride the poverty line.
We shouldn't be on this route anyway as it runs close to the southern Ukraine border, which I find out for myself as I make a wrong turn and arrive at a border post .. ummmmm... I do these things so you don't have to .. and because I'm a knob.
We stop in a small town for a drink and to find some cash, my first priority when entering any new country. We're so used to form over function nowadays. Buildings that look like cheese graters or giant glass jenga towers or cruise ships flying high in the sky. Architects determined to use every function on their new CAD system to produce ever more ridiculous trendy buildings that are out of fashion by the time they are completed. Out here its strictly function over form. Basic and brutal.
Every country has all its unique nuances that identifies itself and Moldova is no different. The thing that strikes me here most is the dress. In a small town like this in Russia you would see women wearing clothes you'd only see on a TV in black and white at home but here the girls are all wearing nice bright colourful summer dresses and looking really good. Really feminine. I could not give a flying fuck if that makes me old fashioned or chauvinistic or it doesn't fit in with whatever the bed wetters are tweeting, I think women in dresses looks nice. So sue me.
Oh, and the bus stops too. Another personal stamp for a country. Christ only knows what the archway is for though.
Get to Chișinău and its quite a big city. It doesn't look at all bad to me. There is a lovely lady on reception that speaks perfect English and we have a long chat. She's trying to buy a flat and she says she much prefers the older Soviet style ones to the more modern ones. She reckons the build quality of the new places is far inferior to the traditional older places. I wasn't expecting that. The new ones must be spectacularly shit if thats the case.
I go and exchange some more funny money for milk by yet another name and take a quick wander.
And see what I mean about the dresses... though it does help if you have the figure of an olympic gymnast
We ask the receptionist what we should see while we're here and she directs us to the Cosmos Hotel in the centre of town. A good example of brutalist architecture when the architects only had a few simple tools they bought cheap at a car boot sale, and even then they don't seem to have used all of them.
TBH I quite like it. I'm tired of characterless shiny glass boxed same old same old Grand Designs clones everywhere. It's good to give my eyes a change sometimes, and it just reinforces that feeling of being somewhere different.
Then you're quickly reminded that some of the human race loves to crawl and climb over the others and to wave it in peoples faces
When I eventually get back to the hotel with sore and aching feet I'm met by Brian and his dead phone. The other morning I heard his old Samsung telling him that it had decided to identify as an IPhone from now on and wanted to be addressed as Siri. So Brian has taken it at its word and shoved something in an inappropriate hole and now its buggered. Despite it being at least 3 centuries since he was born, Brian breathes WhatsApp and is already having withdrawal symptoms. It's a serious situation and demands immediate attention and we go to the google assistant on reception for advice. She reckons there are some phone trading shops not far away. Perfect.
Brian and I find a shop and in true British style get completely ripped off for £30 for a phone that was probably born before I was. Still, Brian's happy and thats all that counts.
Love your write-ups, keep it coming.
Guess it's the homeward leg now for this trip.. Been a pleasure reading it
Guess it's the homeward leg now for this trip.. Been a pleasure reading it
There is always a point in any trip when you start coming down. When thoughts and worries from home break down the door in your mind that you locked them behind all those weeks ago. Today is that day. We've only a few days left, the mood changes and the riding becomes more of a mechanical process just to cover miles.
Out the city and out out to the Romanian border.
The queue is moving exceedingly slowly and I find myself chatting to a woman in a car. She's giving me her life story. Her parents were born in Moldova but they did something that upset the authorities and they were sent to Siberia as punishment. She was born and grew up there but when the USSR dissolved, families were allowed to choose which country they became citizens of and her parents chose to come back to Moldova. She was spitting blood about the Russians and what was happening in Ukraine. She had a daughter that she had banned speaking Russian in the house. She said Moldovans were being brainwashed by Russian TV and bribed by the Russian soldiers stationed there. The reason she was leaving was to collect her husband from an airport in Romania. The Moldovan airspace had restrictions and apparently there were always bomb scares at the airport so it was much easier to fly to/from Romania.
Across the bridge and back into Euroland we go.
Its getting hotter and hotter and hotter. We stop for coffee and I get out my chocolate thermometer, much to the amusement of the local ladies.
Tonight is Sighisoara, birthplace of Vlad the impaler. The only thing being impaled nowadays is ice lollies. Nice place though
I'm feeling properly shit again today. It's properly hot again and we all get warning texts from the Romanian government that the temperature is going to be over 40 and to stay at home if you can. Well we can't so off we go.
After a while I get so dehydrated I start to get hallucinations. I see a giant cup of coffee that I could sit in like a bath and drink until I'm sated.
Get to Oradea and I'm a proper bad way. The temperature has been up at about 43 and I'm fucked. It's all I can do to walk to reception. I didn't wear a buff today and the sun has been beating down on my neck all day. I'm feeling spacey and sick and very tired. I've just got overheated I reckon. When I turn the cold shower on I hiss and steam as my boiling body quickly directs hot blood to my veins and skin to be chilled. Thankfully recovery is pretty quick and after a couple of hours I'm good enough to go for a wander about.
From Oradea its through the schengen border back into Hungary. These trips really take their toll on the bikes, the riders and the kit. I notice the thumb has almost come adrift from my gloves. I get sad when things like this happen. I love my old kit and I know that I won't be able to replace it like for like. I hate seeing something I like coming to the end of its life.
We're in Bratislava tonight. It's a Sunday and it's oddly quiet. The place has a strange feel about it that's difficult to put my finger on. Maybe I'm surfacing too soon. Maybe I'm not ready for real life just yet. I walk into a shopping mall for a Starbucks and I suddenly feel like an alien. I stand there for a good few minutes just thinking, shit, this really is too soon for this. It's slightly overwhelming and oddly disconcerting. This should be my comfort blanket but it feels the exact opposite.
It's the last night we'll all be together and we're all quite subdued. Nearly 7 weeks we've all been in each others pockets and mirrors every day and now its over. One of the riders will head for Italy tomorrow to store his bike and fly home while the rest of us will high tail it back to the UK. All we can do is have a chat about the next ride. There always has to be a next ride.
The one thing I am looking forward to though is not living out my little bag. You can't imagine how much pleasure I get by just putting on a clean pair of jeans and a T-Shirt when I get home.
Autopilot on. Munich please, ASAP. Certainly sir, just add fuel
oh.. and don't forget cake.
Munich to Verdun, running fast for home. A bed in a cheap motel, a supermarket dinner and 'see you soon' texts to my wife.
And then suddenly here we are. The last day. The final day of foreign scents and smells on the wind, funny money and random rooms. Guessing from menus and learning yet another name for milk. Time for my brain to go through all my memories and decide what goes and what stays. But just before we do that, we get one more welcome from a foreign sun as it rises above the French fields and powers the world though another day.
Get to the train and truth be told, I could quite easily just turn round and do the whole trip again.
Out the city and out out to the Romanian border.
The queue is moving exceedingly slowly and I find myself chatting to a woman in a car. She's giving me her life story. Her parents were born in Moldova but they did something that upset the authorities and they were sent to Siberia as punishment. She was born and grew up there but when the USSR dissolved, families were allowed to choose which country they became citizens of and her parents chose to come back to Moldova. She was spitting blood about the Russians and what was happening in Ukraine. She had a daughter that she had banned speaking Russian in the house. She said Moldovans were being brainwashed by Russian TV and bribed by the Russian soldiers stationed there. The reason she was leaving was to collect her husband from an airport in Romania. The Moldovan airspace had restrictions and apparently there were always bomb scares at the airport so it was much easier to fly to/from Romania.
Across the bridge and back into Euroland we go.
Its getting hotter and hotter and hotter. We stop for coffee and I get out my chocolate thermometer, much to the amusement of the local ladies.
Tonight is Sighisoara, birthplace of Vlad the impaler. The only thing being impaled nowadays is ice lollies. Nice place though
I'm feeling properly shit again today. It's properly hot again and we all get warning texts from the Romanian government that the temperature is going to be over 40 and to stay at home if you can. Well we can't so off we go.
After a while I get so dehydrated I start to get hallucinations. I see a giant cup of coffee that I could sit in like a bath and drink until I'm sated.
Get to Oradea and I'm a proper bad way. The temperature has been up at about 43 and I'm fucked. It's all I can do to walk to reception. I didn't wear a buff today and the sun has been beating down on my neck all day. I'm feeling spacey and sick and very tired. I've just got overheated I reckon. When I turn the cold shower on I hiss and steam as my boiling body quickly directs hot blood to my veins and skin to be chilled. Thankfully recovery is pretty quick and after a couple of hours I'm good enough to go for a wander about.
From Oradea its through the schengen border back into Hungary. These trips really take their toll on the bikes, the riders and the kit. I notice the thumb has almost come adrift from my gloves. I get sad when things like this happen. I love my old kit and I know that I won't be able to replace it like for like. I hate seeing something I like coming to the end of its life.
We're in Bratislava tonight. It's a Sunday and it's oddly quiet. The place has a strange feel about it that's difficult to put my finger on. Maybe I'm surfacing too soon. Maybe I'm not ready for real life just yet. I walk into a shopping mall for a Starbucks and I suddenly feel like an alien. I stand there for a good few minutes just thinking, shit, this really is too soon for this. It's slightly overwhelming and oddly disconcerting. This should be my comfort blanket but it feels the exact opposite.
It's the last night we'll all be together and we're all quite subdued. Nearly 7 weeks we've all been in each others pockets and mirrors every day and now its over. One of the riders will head for Italy tomorrow to store his bike and fly home while the rest of us will high tail it back to the UK. All we can do is have a chat about the next ride. There always has to be a next ride.
The one thing I am looking forward to though is not living out my little bag. You can't imagine how much pleasure I get by just putting on a clean pair of jeans and a T-Shirt when I get home.
Autopilot on. Munich please, ASAP. Certainly sir, just add fuel
oh.. and don't forget cake.
Munich to Verdun, running fast for home. A bed in a cheap motel, a supermarket dinner and 'see you soon' texts to my wife.
And then suddenly here we are. The last day. The final day of foreign scents and smells on the wind, funny money and random rooms. Guessing from menus and learning yet another name for milk. Time for my brain to go through all my memories and decide what goes and what stays. But just before we do that, we get one more welcome from a foreign sun as it rises above the French fields and powers the world though another day.
Get to the train and truth be told, I could quite easily just turn round and do the whole trip again.
really enjoyed this - thanks!
Superb as ever... Thanks for taking the time...
All those lovely young ladies handling your helmet..how does your wife deal with that
I'm not long home from a 9 week trip and I had similar time away last year, that feeling when you are almost back but would also quite happily turn around and do it all over again...
I'm not long home from a 9 week trip and I had similar time away last year, that feeling when you are almost back but would also quite happily turn around and do it all over again...
Brilliant write up as always. Thank you for sharing.
My one confusion - why do you carry the spare tyres with you that whole way?
My one confusion - why do you carry the spare tyres with you that whole way?
Its a comfort blanket more than anything. A few years ago I went over washed out section of road with a big sharp edge in Tibet that bent the rim and split the tyre. I was fooked but by an extraordinary piece of luck I ran into another tour group that had a spare my size. We do a fair amount of really bad and rough roads, often with water, and I just worry I could split another tyre and be screwed.
Basically its because I'm a big scaredy cat
Can you do the trip again please so we can read about it and look at the pics?
Sometimes I wonder why I still come on this site, thanks for reminding me
for all the kind comments fellas. I do enjoy running though the corridors of my mind and reliving these trips in words and pictures. It always lifts my mood and reminds me that my good times by far outweigh the bad.Now.. where to next? Any ideas welcome
Thoroughly enjoyable
Thank you
Thank you
Another amazing trip, mate....as always some amazing photos and totally entertaining comments. Thank you for taking the time to share it with us and I look forward to the next adventure!
Thanks for all the time you've taken, brilliant.
Excellent write up
Excellent read….. you really captured the essence of the trip. Succinct, humorous and sensitive. Thank you.
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