Category Archives: Off The Bikes

Rain, Rain, Rain

‘We’re having a drought.  Haven’t had any rain for months. The Roman cistern is so low due to the lack of rain,’ were the cries we heard but the streets were jammed full of umbrellas: doorways blocked by umbrellas, umbrella stands packed with umbrellas, street sellers brandishing umbrellas, eye level – a sea of umbrellas.
‘I’m a cyclist too,’ explained one fed-up man cowering in a tavern. ‘Five days this week I’ve been soaked to the skin,. Today I’ve walked. So many months with no rain and now we’ve got it all at once.’ he exclaimed, arms flailing wildly.
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Bayonne

In amongst the armies of umbrellas were the two silver cyclists dressed from head to foot in water proof cycle clothes. Well nearly, I’ve only got sandals and I’m not sure my waterproof socks work anymore. ‘At least you’re properly dressed for the weather,’ said a Lisbon museum curator, as we wandered through his rooms, but he was clearly pondering over my ‘choice’ of footwear. Suitable it certainly wasn’t: In Segovia, spotting a Decathlon near our hostal, I dived in and upgraded back to boots for my off-bike footwear. It was Gid’s idea (back in Phoenix) to use sandals – and waterproof socks if necessary – off the bike, since he’s done the whole trip riding in sandals. But somehow, he didn’t ever actually do it off the bike; I enthusiastically took his lead. Oops.
Sporting our newly purchased rain hats, we were pretty water resistant in our cycling gear. With a slight bit of modification the hat fits under our cycle helmets adapted to allow the all important helmet mirror to work. Sun hat, rain hat, come what may, one-hat-does-all. One minor catch is that the brim is so good at stopping the rain from penetrating the fabric that a river flows off it when you tilt your head; on several occasions, nearly tipping a deluge of water into our bar bags as we looked down, cracking a hole under the lid, to sneak something out.
Walking around town, with very little exertion, the rain kit is perfect but for an entire days cycling all is not so good. Flying into Lisbon we had plunged full-on into hilly country. Whilst we’ve had a couple of flatter days hills dominate the terrain.
And as we got higher, the rain turned to snow or hail. Here we are in the minor range of mountains between Madrid and Segovia. You might see a skier or two in the background.
Cycling up hills in rain kit results in massive amounts of perspiration inside, soaking the clothing and lining the garments. Attempts at venting the attire allows the rain in. Gid seems to stay dryer is his relatively new jacket with arm pit ventilation while my, again newish, rain legs seem to do the trick. But older kit is showing signs of being beaten. Design flaws are exposed too – Gid’s Endura  jacket keeps him dry, but the “waterproof zip” front pocket actually is more of a bucket – after a day in the rain everything in it is awash as rain gets in, but not out. Amazingly, the waterproof sock system works pretty well. At least, it does for Gid. Clare’s are shorter, and older, and seem to leak – mind you, she has darned them (eh?). The Ortlieb and Carradice panniers do pretty well, but Gid’s rack bag and bar bag – both a decade old when we started – have wear holes, which inevitably leak.
Although our cased-up maps, and outdoorsy Garmin Edge work irrespective of the weather, the same can’t be said of the phones. We tend to use the phones especially for finding accommodation as we approach or search in some place (the Garmin doesn’t really do this level of detail). But arriving in Caceres, that went horribly wrong. Raindrops confuse the touchscreens, and torrential rain confuses them utterly. And as we tried our few pre-planned hostels, we realised the town was full. It was so wet it was difficult moving around the city or talking. We really needed those phones to work to show us the places to try. Eventually, old school, one helpful hostel owner, who couldn’t offer us accommodation, rang round the others to find us a space. Gracias Senora.
Our tent, which held off riverlets and heavy torrential rain several years ago in Alaska, is one such casualty. While crawling into the vestibule with weight on the groundsheet, water oozed up. I moved our foam mini mat over the offending area and tried to ignore it but by the morning water had seeped up through the inner tent leaving a soggy mess. Our aim that day was to crack a challenging mileage to make a major town. Helpful Warmshowers host Fernando had told us he could do the trip by lunchtime. With the Garmin set, off we went, panniers full of wet camping kit, up the nearest hill. We’d forgotten to tell our future host that we were actually not quite in the fortress town we’d told him but, in fact, we were the far side of the mountain it stood on!  It took us 1 1/4 hours to cover the 10km in pouring rain. The Garmin, repeatedly trying to take us on short cuts up one dirt track or another, finally succeeded as we took off on a short linking track to get us back on course. The start was fine but in the 1.5 km we had to cover at least half of it was steeply down some farmers lane with, in this rain, deep cut rivulets and wet rocks.
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Once back on our future host’s nice smooth, nearly flat road we limped into the newest town with a hostel to cancel the rest of the day. Achieving merely a third of our target distance we draped the room with dripping tent, sleeping bags, mattresses etc.
All part of the adventure it seems. It’s good to read accounts of trips 20 years ago, before any of this electronic nonsense or longer, before breathable waterproofs and English being the universal travellers’ language, and then consider ourselves as lucky.
We had better note, that after some of our previous weather-related moans, so far in Europe, we’ve only had one day of bonkers headwind. Mostly winds have been light and/or on our backs. This may change as we approach France’s Atlantic coast.

The Penny Drops

Looking back now, I realise what was missing from our route across the ‘States and come to think of it, since Southeast Asia – it was the ancient history.
From our outset we traveled across Europe progressing through, for us, more alien countries reaching a climax in India or perhaps Sumatra. Once in Australia much of the awe and wonder was lost. Having spent nearly 8 months in New World countries it has been quite an awakening to return to ancient history again. Even though we both spent part of the trip reading Guns, Germs & Steel , and other interesting works, the impact is greatest when the past is physically present.
Cycling down through Australia we weren’t wowed by Victoriana. Frequently there was just a plaque notifying us that some Victorian house had once been there. It’s simply far too plentiful in our own home town. There was a rare nod to the Aborigines ancient cultural history – an occasional sign informed the reader of the importance of a site or even once or twice a museum, but there was little evidence left by these societies. Neither of us can even recall any rock or cave paintings in Oz, although we’d seen them in India and the USA.
The celebrated – by some – Captain James Cook made several appearances on plaques and information boards. The town Seventeen Seventy is even named to commemorate his historic landing date, but that brings us into New World history. It’s interesting for sure, but not as awesome as Romans, Mughals or King Midas.
Equally in the USA, the Wild West was thrillingly different with, vast space, saguaro cacti, cowboy hats, boots, belts, team roping and the occasional fort or Spanish Mission. The 19th C forts in the west defended settlers from Indians while as we reached the southern coast it was the 18th C French and Brits who were the problem for the Spaniards.  But as we cycled further east, in Gid’s words, ‘It’s the same dish with a few different spices.’ The fabric and cultural background was similar to our normal home lives. A few cliff dwellings in the desert hills hinted at more ancient cultures, but weren’t actually, so old.
Lots of places were delightful, NASA in Houston, New Orleans with its hip culture and wrought ironwork balconies a la Francais, the Keys with the island hopping despite large areas of hurricane damage around the Marathon area , the Everglades with its wonderful wildlife, Miami Beach with its 1920-30s Art Deco and bronzed beauties, to name a few.
But now in Lisbon we are back to ancient history in every direction you look – starting with bronze age,  stone walls and mosaics from the Roman times, 400 year old tiles still adorning some houses, ancient narrow cobbled lanes winding up and down hills, a city center rebuilt after the great earthquake in 1755 . A Moorish castle, with breath taking views in every direction, built over ancient remains which were then rediscovered in 1938, providing yet another turn in history.  Our cameras are drawn, cocked and firing every which way.
Floored by ancient history?
Caceres – Moorish cistern, recycling Roman & Visigoth columns
To be fair we did visit one monastery and chapel in Goliad, Southern Texas, dating from around 1700, and in the deep south there are wooden shacks which housed the cotton pickers and workers for other local industries but wooden shacks aren’t going to last centuries. It had never really dawned on me how rich Europe’s history, and Asia’s is, in comparison with the New World.
Yet for all the fascination and wonder of these ancient cities and palaces, I – this time Gid – think back also to the wide open plains and wide open country towns of Australia and the USA – and find these Iberian cities claustrophobic. It’s wonderful everything is close together and walkable via tiny lanes and steps. But one can’t take two steps without swerving around an old buffer or a fashionista or wandering tourists, there’s people everywhere, never mind the tiny, uneven sidewalks. Where do they build anything new? Why are all the rooms so small? I think home is going to feel exactly the same. Oh dear. Should I emigrate, or at least, move to Northumberland, the least densely populated county in England, with only 62 people per square kilometre, and Roman remains?
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The Land of John Wayne

The United States has never been on my ‘must visit’ list. The awe and wonder has long since gone with the US continually in the limelight; splashed across the media for this reason or that. The States felt some how over familiar, un-exotic, and ‘the easy way’. Gid had occasionally posed the idea of going east across South America, denying that it would be his first choice for our way home; just waiting for me to bite, I felt.

But an hour or so after we arrived in LA, I was hooked. It didn’t have one or two beach volleyball courts, there were twelve of them lined up waiting for players. Roller blades, bikes, skateboards all zoomed past; the place was alive. As we cycled toward our host’s place in Korea Town, Gid pointed out the Hollywood sign on the hill in the distance. What a perfect start! Hollywood boulevard, Sunset boulevard, Route 66 here we come.

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We were lucky to be staying with an enthusiastic local, Oscar, who was generous enough to take us on a guided tour for a day. Whizzing about on our bikes we visited the Griffiths Observatory, downtown, rode the metro with our bikes (yah boo LT) … and had the best tacos in town.

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Under our own steam we wandered along Hollywood Boulevard, spotting the stars names in the pavement sidewalk. Besides a spattering of tourists like us, there were scores of movie wannabes, in costume, hustling for paid photo shoots. Instead, more economically, Clare opted to lie down with Rod Stewart and Burt Lancaster, and fire off selfies. She passed on Donald Trump though: he used to host a talk show, apparently. What have we missed?

 

  • Wide, long, hot, dusty streets – check
  • Grids, intersections, traffic lights – check
  • Glitzy mall – check
  • Elaborate Christmas decorations – check
  • Spanish spoken maybe more than English – check
  • Stretch limos, Ferraris; and Porsche runabouts – check
  • Movie cameras in use on the street – check
  • Black & white squad cars – check
  • Big red fire engines blasting through intersections – check
  • Palms and bougainvillea – check
  • Huge pickups with nothing in and rumbly engines – check
  • Empty lots and abandoned shops – check
  • Body beautiful workouts on the beach – check
  • Joggers left, right, and centre – check
A pier in San Diego reminded us of Worthing

Gid was struck by the poverty evident amongst the splendour. Street walkers riffled through the bins, make-shift shelters filled hidey holes, and tents appeared along the concrete floodways. Shanty towns, where structures were covered with random sheets of plastic, that could have been straight out of India, filled areas of wasteland. Such ad-hoc homes were especially evident when we followed the cycleway along the enormous culverted drain – and each tent seemed to have a bicycle or several.

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We’d chosen Cycle Route 90 – the USA Southern Tier coast to coast crossing, because during the fall it’s run as a commercial trip. Local ‘guided trips’ we’ve done before are picked for their scenery, points of interest and traffic free roads so we hoped this would be too. We would be cycling November to February, so we hoped staying well south would avoid frozen toes (and many mountains too).

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To reach Route 90 we rode down the California coast, with eye watering camping costs but beautiful coastal views, to the starting point in San Diego, then turned eastwards and set out through California towards the desert. To our relief, camping costs plummeted, often being free and the occasional motel became affordable.

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This was a different USA entirely. Small towns, widely spaced in the hills and sands. The days are short, so we often cycled through sunset, and occasionally met the dawn when we crawled out of the tent in the morning. Most days we meet at least one other cycle tourist, although most of them seem to be heading for South America rather than California. It’s a playground for the local big cities too. Motor bikes, quad bikes, buggies: big, medium and small career around sending out plumes of sand up behind them. Endlessly, we’re passed by towed buggies and all-terrain vehicles behind monster pickups and huge RVs. Unfortunately, while American freight drivers (“semis” mostly) seem responsible enough in passing or waiting, the RV boys seem unconscious of their width, bow-wave and tail suck; it’s a good job the roads are mostly wide and lightly trafficked.

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With lots of space to leave things where they are, and a climate that’s kind to buildings, metalwork and even mummified roadkill, there’s lots of photogenic old stuff to take pictures of.

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One disappointment so far, is that wildlife seems very timid.  We’ve not seen much although, the humming birds were rather special and much too fast for our cameras . On the highway, there’s not even roadkill, until just recently a couple of flat & desiccated coyotes. Maybe morelive beasties will turn up further east.

Smaller, browner, pelican
Seen in the desert, medium size.
There must be loads more of these than we see.

Writing this, here we are in Wickenburg, AZ, a town of cowboys and rodeos – team roping capital of the world, it claims. But frustratingly, it’s Thanksgiving Day, so no rodeo today. Worse still, the local shops have run out of turkey, except for whole frozen ones. Chicken will have to do, cooked on the camping stove on the veranda of this comfy motel.

Australia – Photos

Wow – what a lot of photos we took in Australia – getting on for a thousand each. Well, here’s a selection. There’s even more wildlife photos a few of which we’ll upload to the Birds and Beasties pages someday.

The Scenic Views, Part 1

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The Scenic Views, Part 2

On the Road

Victorian Rail Trail
Victorian Rail Trail
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Victorian Rail Trail local
Atherton Tablelands – a bit like Devon
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A small road train. Note it’s politely passing right over – contrary to some stereotypes – they didn’t all though!
Nature meets rural meets urban
Sugar cane train
Farmers abandon old vehicles, like many places. They don’t rust much, and nothing grows on them. Forty years later, they’re still there.
How did they move the rest of the digger?
The Old Road. No, we didn’t.
Stoney Creek. A not uncommon name.
Yeppoon
Typical Queensland free campsite
Another abandodned railway
It’s a village. Honest.

Urban

War memorial, white wood church, American truck …the hat says “Australia”.
Our first view of Sydney Harbour Bridge
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Yeppoon
I think this was Brisbane, heading in
Brisbane, heading out
Brisbane, again, I think.
Melbourne, well, St Kilda
Melbourne – lots of bicycles

Whale Watching

Hervey Bay, since you ask. Several times we saw whales from the coastal cliffs, down much of the SE coast. The humpbacks migrate that way.

Thar She Blows!
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There was some behaviour
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The Best of the Rest of the Wildlife

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Lesson one in sexing bats. A boy.
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I’m ignoring you. Think it’s an immature Brahminy Kite.
Australians regard the ibis as pests, can’t think why….
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Dunno, Australia
White Bellied Sea Eagle
Guess!
Echidna – Long beaked I guess.
Goanna
Ok, it’s in a zoo. But it broke in.
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The Holiday Snaps

Raymond Island, first koala.
Passes the time…
One for the grandshildren -Oliver’s cross with Victoria!
Our hosts in Melbourne, Kirsten and Warwick
Ok, it was a zoo.
Rockhampton
Clare – a natural master of the boomerang

End

Bali and the Dragons

We cycled only a couple of days in Bali, to Jimbaran, just south of the airport, for a comfy, cheap, tourist hotel, and especially, just round the corner from a really useful bike shop. That Surly Ogre with that bike packing kit was probably perfect for Sumatra.
From Bali we took a bikeless side trip to Flores and Rinca, where be dragons.

Clare in Bali

Gideon in Bali

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Standard Indonesian Bike Fuel Station – Except the Balinese use vodka bottles!
Teamwork!

Clare in Flores

Clare on the Boat to Rinka

Gideon in Flores

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Clare’s Dragons

Gideon’s Dragons

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Then we packed up, and probably marking the end of our most adventurous travels, left Asia and its bustle, noise, and low prices, for Australia.

Camera Club Special – Let’s Play ICM in a Cave!

Post dedicated to all our friends at Worthing Camera Club.

The limestone caves near Phetchaburi are lit up with coloured tubes. Beside the cave temples, there’s plenty of interesting drippy rock formations. But how to make a picture of them?

It’s a cliff, innit?
…and a bird…

Needs to be a bit more alive, perhaps…

Monster?
Add some human interest?

Ok, but only ok. And quite tedious, in a cave, without a tripod or flash gun. Hey, unlike an English cave, tripods aren’t banned 🙂 But I haven’t got one. My camera’s tiny detachable flash is, err, detached. And anyway no help, far too weedy, boringly white, and boringly stuck on top of the camera. So thank you Olympus for making a tiny lens that’s f1.8, that saved those photos. But I still had to get Clare to stand still for way longer than is normal. And can only shoot from an ideally placed stalagmite. And they’re not terribly exciting.

Which got me to remembering some of Worthing Camera Club’s winter lectures a few years back. Intentional Camera Movement is a respectable (ish) discipline that isn’t only “I forgot to bring my tripod to the bluebell wood”. So here are my Thai rocks:

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PS: Most of those are colours as shot. A few are rather mucked about with in Lightroom.

Thanks for looking!

 

Cheap As Chips?

A tiny blog posting – a Micropost!

I thought it would be interesting to see how the countries we pass through compare economically. Thanks to Wikipedia, it’s pretty easy.

Here’s a chart showing the Per Capita Income in each country we’ve passed through, or hope to pass through.

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And here’s the same chart, adjusted for the cost of living in each country (called Purchasing Power Parity, or  PPP).

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PPP seems to have the effect of making the people in middle-income states better off. And Singapore.

We can even divide one by the other, to give us a rough Cost of Living Cycling. However, this is a bit rubbish, as in most of Europe, costs were kept down by camping. From about Bulgaria/Romania onwards, it felt a bit insecure rough camping, and hot – we really appreciated the comfort of a shower, so mostly stayed in guesthouses and cheap hotels. In tourist cities, that was often pretty cheap, but out on the road, I would guess that it very often was close to $20/night for a room for the two of us, irrespective of country. So far the most expensive nights have been Uzbekistan ($70 for a yurt), India (~$70 for a tent, ~$40 for a palace (really it was, gorgeous)), and Myanmar ($50 at two of the hotels, trading on scarcity). Not normally regarded as high-cost locations. The Caspian Sea ferry was also an expensive night, but did cover a fair bit of ground as we slept. The Tajikistan Toyota Tour was by far our most expensive week, but wasn’t exactly integral to the trip. And it didn’t include the (cheap) guesthouses!

CostOfCycling

Turkey, Uzbekistan and India have been most costly for souvenirs, not because of prices, but because of the wonderful handicrafts, and their availability, and perhaps more stop days, and maybe the timing of Christmas.

End of micropost!

(Note to self – master spreadsheet stored on cloud, in case plans change!)

Hiking to Meet the Hill Tribes

Our public transport northwards in Myanmar ended in the town of Tsipaw (Hsipaw), Shan State. It’s a pleasant place, but the attraction there is as a base for hiking into the hills.
Myanmar isn’t exactly a unitary state. It used to be called Burma, reflecting the dominance of the Bamar people. Indeed, they were expanding quite an empire westwards in the early 1800s, until they met the East India Company expanding the other way, attacked, and came off worst. One reason the country’s name changed in 1989, was to be more inclusive of the other people’s the Bamar had (partially) subdued: the Shan, the Palaung, the Mon, and many others. So, hiking in this part of Shan State, we’d meet Shan people, and also Palaung people. Our guide, Aikethein, is a Palaung.
We’d been told our route would be across the fields in the morning heading up into the hills during the afternoon. No such luck. Barely across one field we started on our incline. The broad track occasionally opening out into panoramic views, eventually shrank into a ‘sheep’ trail across the steep edged hills winding it’s way up and down. We didn’t see any sheep, just a few motorbikes.
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Forest paths wound over tree roots and rocks as we crunched through the leaf fall, passing cleared areas used for crops, often, at this time of year, burnt to clear them for the next growing season. Towards the end of the day, small plantations of tea bushes ranged up steeper slopes.
A small boy dancing from rock to rock  across the burbling brook, swiftly crouching to take aim, catapult in hand. The bird flew off as junior sprang into action again, for another shot. Aikethein fumbled in his bag seizing his catapult for a more experienced attempt. Peeyaang .. another shot flew out but still the bird fluttered away. We now know why we hear, but don’t see, birds in the forest.
We stopped in a Shan village for lunch, although at the house of a Palaung family. Shan and Palaung have their own languages, and the Palaung generally live higher up in the hills, where they grow tea. I nabbed the only chair, a small plastic garden chair the same as a few others on the veranda that stood next to the bamboo ‘deck chair’, the fomer probably for tourists when they arrived. Our food was on a circular low table in a large sparsely furnished room. Our hostess bustled away at a bit of sweeping keeping the room spotlessly clean once we had eaten. The small pile she had swept with her traditional handmade broom quickly disappeared down a lifted floor board to the ground 8 feet below – how neat was that!
The roomy houses are lovely. There’s stuff lying around showing just how much can be made out of bamboo and twine: hats, walls, plumbing, fences, gates, chairs, bridges, it’s endless. There are now some concrete houses, but most are a traditional chunky wood frame with bamboo mat walls. Sometime in the last 100 years, corrugated iron roofs replaced thatch in most cases. The light woven walls keep out the sun but provide ventilation.
The cuisine is one of the many things that defines each culture. We were first introduced to fermented tea leaf salad on the Myanmar International Airways plane where Gid tried it but declined a second helping. Here in the village, having done a days hike and with no other option, we both tucked in.
Aikethein was telling us that whilst the main ingredients may stay the same across regions of Myanmar the method of cooking them has slight changes from village to village. He pointed out that the food we were eating was less greasy than in Hsipaw which we agreed with. Sourbanyan tree leaves, cabbage soup, a solid  wad of steamed rice were three of the things on our supper table.
Manns Tan, a Palaung village, perched on the edge of the hillside, is a cluster of 15 houses. There are numerous children all keen to smack your hand in a high 5 greeting calling bye- bye, hello, tata. Relatively recently, the trails to it have been dug out to be passable by motorbike as well as horse. A motorbike can carry two 50Kg bags of rice, plus a bit else.
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18km (11miles) walked. Mostly up, as we climbed to around 1000m, amongst small tea plantations and wandering water buffalo whose bells clonked musically as they browsed. Fortuitously, the buffalo don’t eat tea bushes. We noticed the Myanmar (SE Asian) water buffalo are indeed different from Indian.
Aikethein Taw was our guide. His village is 50 km away but is not accessible to foreigners because, like many places in Myanmar, there are civil, and not so civil, disputes between tribes fighting over the natural resources in the land. He left his village to move to the ‘city’ as he didn’t want to be a farmer, and has been guiding now for quite a few years. He has big ideas for more work in the growing tourist trade.
Aikethein is one of twelve siblings. Two of his brothers died from cocaine addiction, one from measles which in the last ten years is now immunized against.  In families where there are three male children one has to join the “army” (that is, the tribal militia, not the national army, whom they may fight). In villages where there are less than thirty children there is no formal education but children will often be sent to a nunnery or monastery at the age of six or seven and are free to leave when they like.

Alternative transport tried and tested

On leaving Yangon airport, after our flight from India, it was like stepping back into normality albeit with a sauna full on. The taxi had four – count them – wheels, and four – listen – cylinders, real springs, and the driver’s style had only a soothing effect on our blood pressure. Other cars travelled along marked lanes with the occasional brief hoot as we listened to the purr of motor car engines. Motorbikes are banned! Buses cruised along. All very orderly and blissfully peaceful. Melodic bird song returned to our ears.
The city itself was, by comparison, clean, although as we explored further we found many similarities with India: crowds, street vendors, wires draped along the buildings and criss-crossing the streets, surface drainage channels and food stalls filling the pavement. But no cows, no hasslers, and the wares now carried on shoulder poles. And did we mention, no hooting? We visited quietly busy pagodas and restocked on memory cards and a few bike bits.
Our plan for Myanmar was designed to show us some of the country, bearing in mind that we’d flown into almost the “end” of it, near the Thai border. So, we used alternative transports to backtrack about halfway up the country, back towards the border with India. Not that riverboats or Myanmar trains go much faster than a bicycle, but they do keep going for longer and don’t collapse from exhaustion.
Decidedly top heavy, perched on a one metre wide gauge, the sleeper train from Yangon to Bagan lurched and jolted along, frequently caterpillar style whilst wobbling from side to side. Sharing the carriage with Anton from Germany and the many bugs and mosquitoes, left us all with ample space but the mossies seemed rather greedy. Gid resorted to a bug net overnight, carefully tucking me in as well. Lurching along in the train we were submerged in village life: fields being watered or tended to, traffic waiting for us to pass, children, and those young at heart, keen to wave. Vendors tempted us with their wares peering into our gaping windowless chasms, other locals sat just biding their time or peeking from behind their doors but all were near to be seen.
Blue loo and satalite dishes
The river boat from Bagan to Mandalay was not as interesting as the train trip from Yangon to Bagan. Bustling along the river that was  a good half mile wide, despite winding our way back and forth avoiding the shallows, we were rarely in touch with the people. Dancing dots on the horizon appeared to be children playing on the bank. Others were attending laundry or fishing nets, just distinguishable in the distance. Photos taken require dramatic cropping to give a feel of the people and scenery around us. River traffic trundled past but was frequently industrialized; clearly not from the villages that periodically line the banks.
On the boat itself there was an on going game of musical chairs as views versus the sun battled for the prized seats first facing one way then the other.  With about 20 tourists aboard (and one local passenger), there was a chance for some chat. Especially as Nicolas and Elise were also cycle touring. Navigating through the sand banks that were intermittently marked, was highly technical.  Two people stood on the bow of the boat elegantly welding depth gauge poles, arm actions directing the helmsman left or right.
Motorbikes are banned only in Yangon, elsewhere in Myanmar they are ubiquitous. Like India, they’re all small, if a little newer in design. Unlike India, there’s an assumption of observation, and a concept of right of way,  so hooters are used sparingly. Sometimes one can hear a motorbike approaching by the voices of the people on it! We’re still trying to take this on, after immersion in India for three months. In Mandalay, it was our voices, as we took motorbike taxis at one point. They also gave us helmets, but had they just got their motorbikes and wanted to practice? The two times we went on the back of Indian’s bikes, helmetless and three up, admittedly in the middle of nowhere, the riders were much smoother and assured, whereas our Mandalay taxis, two times two up, felt a bit wobbly and less secure. Were we paying for their learner petrol?
Our second train trip, Mandalay to Tsipaw, notable for two feats of engineering back in the early 1900s, was also marked by higher levels of sophistication seen in the farming. Although still mainly small scale stuff with every last patch of fertile land cultivated,  the watering cans on shoulders and the ox ploughs had been replaced by rotavators, hose pipes, sprinklers systems and strimmers.
Unbelievably the train jolted to a halt then went backwards. It was plenty slow enough surely it didn’t need to cover some bits twice. It gradually became obvious; as day was breaking we could see the track layers beneath us. We were gaining height up the side of a mountain onto a plateau, the train can’t do hairpin bends, so it had to switch direction for each zig or zag. A panoramic view opened up before us, lined with receding hills.
The second spectacular event was marked by people peering out of the windows and cries of, ‘There it is’. Fleeting glimpses developed into a full view until the train stopped just before we curved round to cross the Goteik Gorge viaduct. Crowds clambered down onto the track for a better view framing the ‘must take’ photographs.
Goitek Viaduct
Don’t look down. No, that’s not the road we later cycled, that’s errr, downstream?
Think that’s about covered it: Plane, taxi (4 wheels), train, riverboat, motorbike, train. Oh and then  in Tsipaw, tuk tuk, hiking, and in Lyaung Shwe, long tail boat.

Camel trek – Thar desert

It was with great excitement that I climbed into the jeep to set off on our camel trek. That lasted until I saw the camels and started to wonder what were we doing now. The camels were loaded up, all we had to do was hop on. That was where the trouble started. With no stirrups to help, how was I going to get my leg over that hump. And this camel is as tall as a pony – when it’s still sitting down.
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The first couple of hours felt rather traumatic. I was so thrilled to be going on a camel trek, I wanted to snap away as we went but was too scared to take my hands off the saddle.  This was compounded by the terrible itch that, it was clear, my camel had.  He regularly half stumbled / lurched into a step, first his front leg kicked back then the back kicked forward but neither could reached this itch.
There is a deer further along the track.
As time progressed I did get used to it and my camel husbandry improved; we were able to productively assist with managing and loading/ unloading the camels during our lunch break and at the end of the day. The camels wandered off if unhobbled and would have to be rounded up. Gid’s camel, even when hobbled, still made a break for it. The camel was tied into a sitting position, using his rein running down his chest to the hobble rope, only to shuffle along on his haunches. We started using the foot loops, which helped a lot, although locals don’t use them. By day three Gid, who was altogether more confident with the camels, was going solo and I could take photos at a trot.
The trip itself was awesome. We rode the camels, for an hour or two at a time, along tracks through desert scrub, across sandy sections and over dunes, visiting the odd village as we went.
The villagers are used to tourists so we caused some excitement but weren’t mobbed. Rather fabulously we were invited into homes and regularly offered chai which was made on an open hearth in the corner of their courtyard – homes here are designed primarily to keep the sun off and the goats out – any breeze is most welcome.  Most people were happy to pose for photos; some performed a mini concert. Even very old people came out to see us. It was delightful to get a glimpse into village life. A small donation was always exchanged: 50 rupees for chai or photos, or 200 for a mini concert. To put this in context, a  labourer might earn 250 rupees a day, that’s about €4, so a couple of tourist visits in a day is a big bonus, especially at present in Mr Modi’s cash crisis.
Children repeatedly asked for ‘school pen, school pen’. One 15 year old lad, able to speak some English, told us there was a village school. The teacher might come on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, he said, but then miss Thursday. He also told us he couldn’t read or write. That, it would appear, is not uncommon. Our guide, Harish, who had picked up English from tourists, proclaimed that he could not read or write but his younger brother could because school had opened, in his village, in 2011. Our second guide, Saleem, couldn’t spell his own name for us when he asked us to mention him in our reviews.
The desert camp experience was fantastic.  We learnt several desert life ‘tricks of the trade’ such as hollowing out a bed in the sand and, in winter, lining it with covered stones from the fire for extra warmth and how to catch a goat to milk it for fresh milk in the chai (someone else’s goat, that is, so it may be, ahem, not entirely welcome). ‘Washing up’ with sand we’re already familiar with from our background in canoeing and kayaking trips but it was a first for sleeping on dunes under the stars with gerbils scurrying around in the shrubs behind us.
Don’t know if the goat’s owner would appreciate this…
Harish up the tree, collecting firewood
Tough mouths!
Harish cooking supper
Gid is still asleep in this bedding
Day 2 Gid asleep
The Thar desert is the most populated desert in the world. The Indira Gandhi canal must have done much to improve the water supply but, when the rains fail, as had been the case this year, the crops don’t grow and we passed a few ploughed fields where nothing was growing. Harish had to reach deep to get water from the storage tank. But it seems to be being managed – people and animals get enough to drink, and some fields are irrigated.
There’s quite a bit of wildlife, too, although apart from birds, we only saw gerbils, chipmunks and beetles, during the actual camel trek. There were several different large birds of prey, and also Egyptian Vultures. The high point was a lunch spot near to an eagle’s nest in a tree, we saw them visiting their chicks from a distance, but when Gid tried hiding behind a tree about 70m away, the parents spotted him, and waited on some rocks a km away before returning. So not much in the way of photos from that encounter.
The path to true love never runs straight…
This was our Christmas card photo
End.