Spent all last night trying to resist the pull of the 24 hour dairy drugs den just next door. I seriously considered a quick dash in my pants but didn’t want to scare the shop assistant when i whipped out my wallet. I’d not eaten properly and milk can fill the gap. By 6am though I’d given up the struggle and was sitting on the bed with a bottle of Russians finest, neatly topped with a special travel teat I never leave home without.
Bitch minus 1. Nearly B day. Check the link and it says The Bitch is still 1200 miles away back in Yekaterinburg. If that is right then I’ll buy a rope and find a bridge. Plenty of those round here.
I need to go and buy my grandson something I saw yesterday but needed spousal approval for so wander back down towards the stations and all the drunken guards that patrol there. This has been getting worse with every increase in city size. It’s often quite intimidating too. I was in a supermarket last night and a drunk pushed in. Started talking to me with stone cold snake eyes. Having to stay calm up top when touching cloth at the back door. I really don’t like it.
Still, another French baker has been up working all night so I really should make all his toil worthwhile.
I get a sense of things beginning to line up. Things slotting into place. Hopefully aligning in my favour. Enough to make me cross the creepy line just for a few snatched moments.
Get to the toy shop. I forgotten what I’m buying but i know I want to buy it from this shop assistant. you shops are missing a trick I reckon. If all the assistants dressed like this then all the fathers would be in spending every penny they earn every single weekend and the kids would have bedrooms that look like Hamleys.
They’re refurbishing the Trans Siberian station and they’ve had Vladimangelo in to paint the ceilings. Bloody good job he’s done too. Loving his work. Pity I had to actually wake the x-ray operator up on the way in. The belt had stopped and so had she. Eyes closed and snoring.
Get a suburban train out to my mate’s place. The closer I get, the slower I go. It’s like climbing a fucking mountain. Now I’m walking. Look at the link and the clouds clear. The bike is in Moscow central. That probably means a weekend wait now. An hour later it says the bike is due to be transferred up to the depot. It’s 4:30 on a Friday evening though. I’m thinking like an Englishman. 7pm it changes again.
“Information: Arrived and placed in warehouse”
I’m eating breakfast with Konstantin and he calls the freighters without me really comprehending what he’s doing. He has it on speaker and all I can hear is a feline woman who’s sat at a desk wearing skin tight black fur, a couple of pointy ears and a long fluffy tail that she loves to strip men naked and tickle them with. She has it all going on and she’s even managed to pump up my old purple plunger. I thought that was dead. And on top of all that, she says my bike is ready to be collected. I better buy some catnip on the way
But first i sit and chat with Konstantin and his wife for a while and contemplate how all the chaos of the world can end me up here. If I hadn’t stopped with my bike overheating in Tajikistan last year I’d never have met Konstantin. And if I hadn’t met him I’d have been royally fucked on this trip. They are both really nice people. Really really nice people. I hope I can in some small way pay them back someday in the future. I certainly want to visit them again. Travel broadens the mind and slims the wallet. I’d much rather have a fat mind than a fat wallet though.
Get a taxi round round to the freighters. About an hours drive. £15. The cost of travel here is shocking. I caught the surburban train yesterday. 55 minutes ride. £1.20. Then I got off and didn’t know i needed my ticket to get OUT the station too. A fierce beady eyed ‘by the book’ nana absolutely would NOT let me leave. She took me to a ticket machine and pointed at a sign that said something about fines.
“AHHHH fuck”
“£3.25”
“AHH not so fuck”
Ridiculous. Anyway get to the freighters and go to reception looking for the one in the cat suit but instead I get the one that got the cream. All the cream. Every single day since birth. Still, she got her stamp out and sent a tsunami of fat rolling up her arm as she thudded it down and sent me to the warehouse.
Give the little bloke the paperwork and he takes me through. Where is it. I can’t see The Bitch but I can definitely hear snorting and banging like a horse in a box. He goes off with the forklift and THERE SHE IS. COME TO DADDY
Then he goes and gets a crow bar and unpacks it for me too whilst I sit on and keep it upright. Takes about 10 minutes and she’s free
Fit the screen, pump up the tyres, adjust the chain, turn on the ignition, press the button, hold my breath… and she jumps into life. Fuck what a relief. FUCK what a relief
I ride through the warehouse, down the loading ramp and into the fresh air. I just sit there and smile. I was thinking again the other day about all the chaos and noise in my head. I think my personalities are like homing pigeons. And now I’m on the bike it’s like opening their basket and setting them free. They can all fuck off and do their own thing for a while until they want to find me and start pecking me with their point of view but they’re not all here at the same time. Having them all cooped up together is a one way ticket to madness. It’s such a beautiful feeling.
Moscow traffic is an absolute prize bastard. Anytime, anywhere. It’s a bastard. I’m obviously absolutely paranoid about the bike overheating so I’m filtering fast and loose within 5 minutes. Shit or bust. I’m taken out on the toll road towards Belarus but it’s all fucking roadworks and narrow lanes. I chicken out after 15 minutes and park the bike on the verge to cool down a bit before taking a couple of extra large brave tablets and diving back in to take the first exit I can and ride across country instead.
The Bitch feels delicious. I ride maybe 20 mph less than usual and just concentrate on the riding sensations I’m feeling. My body is totally integrated with her now. She’s an extension of my senses. This is what it’s all about. She wants to get some dirt under her wheels so she takes me in a fucking field of fucking flowers that I can barely fucking ride through to risk my fucking life and hers to take a fucking picture to show her friends. And she chooses the exact moment the fucking farmer turns up on his fucking quad bike. He just stops and stares. What else would you do if you saw a fucking stupid Englishman having an argument with Ktm in the middle of your crops
I’ve got a hotel in mind about 200 miles out. Somewhere I’ve stayed before and opposite a truck cafe that serves vegetables. My stomach needs vegetables. I’m food pregnant again. I went for a scan yesterday and they said “congratulations, your food baby is developing nicely. We predict you’ll give birth to a large and healthy ICBM within the next 24 hours”. Something to look forward too
Get to the hotel about 6. There isn’t much of anything on this road for the next few 100 miles. Walk in. “Booking?” “Niet” “Sorry, no rooms”. Fuck. Eat dinner and think.
Get back on the bike. There is supposedly a motel up the road. But not the one I’m on it seems. I ride 50 miles and stop at a truck cafe that looks like a hotel. “Niet, 70km”. Bollocks. The sun is falling now. 8pm. Another 30 miles. There is a hotel by a petrol station. Go in, hunt about. I think I’ve stopped at “Hotel Cunt”. The woman is the cafe is a cunt. The manager that comes out his office is a massive cunt. The kind of cunt that you can tell before you even see him, just by his footsteps. He walks like a CUNT!! Face to face with him is like being dared to punch his FAT CUNTY FACE in.
So I just leave. 8:30. Next place to try is about an hour. About 20 minutes later I see a petrol station and back off the road is a motel. It looks quite new but it also looks shut. I ride past, then change my mind and go back to check. Walk in and a blonde lady appears and right at that moment I know it’s going to be good. That fate has fucked me about but now it’s going to give me a treat. I very rarely feel a connection with nanas but this one is different. She’s about 100% over my weight limit but I don’t care. Her eyes and face are so comforting and welcoming. She’s smiling and chatting away and offering me food. “I’ve been baking. Would you like some coffee and cake?”
This is what it’s all about. This is it exactly. A random place. A random woman. An unexpected encounter and experience at a time you’d given up and given in to having to ride hours more in the dark. This is, to me, what makes these trips. Fuck I’m glad to be back.
