Category: Almost Madness 2025

Today’s the day. Let’s see if I can mend my friend. I approach the day thinking I’m just going to have to go through the motions. I’m sure shit and happens have been up all night making plans and dropping turds in my diary so I might as well go tread on them and get it over with.

Now I must give a big up to Google here. They have got travel down to a fine art. I say where I want to go and it gives me everything I need from A to B, tracks me and updates me enroute, and leaves me with 2% battery to get home again. Get on a bloody bus. I haven’t been on one of those since I wore a school uniform. And then another. I do find putting myself at the mercy of other forms of transport over which I have no control very difficult. I just want to run t the front, jump into the driving seat and stand on the LOUD pedal.

I’m at the Potsdam dealer for 9. I’m sure I can smell shit. Or is that happens? Anyway.. “we would need to order it”. Of course you would. And I’m sure it would have to be delivered on the back of bees all the way from Austria. “But the Berlin dealer has one”. Ohhhh.. ok then. Could you phone them and reserve it please? Which he does. The repair place shuts at 6 I think, maybe 5 but it’s going to be tight and now I’m in a proper hurry. Get 2 buses back to the hotel to extend the room. “Yes… but you’ll have to change rooms”. Of course I will. I’VE GOT ALL THE FUCKING TIME IN THE WORLD LOVE.

Another bus, then a train, and another train right across Berlin. The trains are all delayed and running slow My mind is making plans again. I speed walk down to the dealers. Obviously there is no crushing need to get this done today. It could easily wait until tomorrow but this is one of my inherent failings. I rush. I move far too quickly through life and spend a lot of time, sitting down bored out my skull wishing I could have just relaxed and taken my time. Memories are priceless and I’ve got an absolute shit tonne of them I can run to but just stopping sometimes and breathing something in properly is just as important and I often miss that step out. It’s just more infighting in my head that does it, trying to keep everyone satisfied and fit the absolute maximum into every day. I can be a real curse though, and I know it.

Get to the dealers, they can’t remember any phone call. The lady tap tap taps on the computer. “We have only one” .

Now I’m sure I spot a family resemblance here in the way she smiles as she says it. “I know you. You’re Mrs Shit aren’t you. Did your little twat of a son put you up to this?”

She just keeps smiling and sends someone out back while I contemplate buying the fastest bike in the shop and riding it into the nearest bridge. He comes back out and he has 2 bearings. Maybe these two are a double act. Germans are known for their sense of humour after all. TWATS. Pay the money, turn and run.

It’s gone 1. Probably 3 pm before I get to the repair place. The window is closing. It’s going to be another day I just know it. The trains are all delayed. They are all waiting on the tracks and in stations for ages and ages. I hear an announcement. “We are sorry for the delay. The person responsible is being taken to the woods to be shot”. Well good, but this is really fucking with my swede. I could fix the bike in an hour at home but I don’t have all the tools I need with me. I’ll probably have to do it tomorrow. Fucky soapy suddy tit wanks .. which doesn’t sound like a bad option just at this moment ..

Get back gone 3, jump into my leathers and walk round to the repair place about 3:45. The bloke I spoke to on Saturday isn’t there. They say they’re leaving in an hour. My heart sinks. I gave it my best shot. But then he phones his mate I saw at the weekend, then tells me he will lend me some tools and I can get on with it. I hear singing. I hear a gospel choir. I hear fucking HALLELUJA. And I’m away on the Ktm speed changing olympics. 15 minutes and she’s gutted. I’ve got the yoke off and can see the bearings. Fuck me. That looks … serious. My brain immediately starts to think that I was on the autobahn with it like that, and then it starts looking at a few “what if” scenarios. Before I know it I see a blue screen of death and my brain reboots. It can’t go there. I’m going to designate that particular wormhole as “Chernobyl” and stay the fuck away from it.

The bloke helps me twat off the broken bearing and it falls apart. He’s never seen one do that before apparently. That’s good to know. My mate reckons that they look overtightened but these have been in over 20k now so I think its more likely the absolute twatting they took on the Pamir last year is more likely the culprit. They’ve been fine until the last couple of days too.

The top bearing is fine and in the name of expediency I leave it in for now. We take the (very heavily marked) shell out and replace that too then it’s blur mechanics again for 15 minutes and she all dressed ready to go. I give them all the cash I have and ride off back to the hotel with a massive fuck off smile on my face

I’ll go and buy myself some cock slippers from the local sex shop to celebrate. And some latex too. That looks very practical actually. Wipe clean and stain proof. I bet it makes an excellent noise with you go down a slide at the park in it too.

Is it me, or is there a manufacturing fault with this?

Now. Before I go tonight I want you all to make me a promise. I want you to never mention any potential scenarios that could have unfolded had the bearings given out at any other point than they did. Can we all agree on that? I’ve had a word with shit and happens. I’ve showed them the pictures and I’ve explained that they went way too far this time. If they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives with me pulling them along by choke collars round their cocks then they’re going to have to calm down.

Get the bike out the garage and ride out into the soft yellow light. The rest of the spectrum will come later but for now yellow is perfect. The Bitch feels flighty and loose and ready to dance. It feels like someone has swapped her heavy black boots to ballet shoes overnight. I’m slightly nervous of throwing her around too much though, mainly because she was in bits a few hours ago and I was in a hurry

It’s about 420 dull motorway miles to my brother’s in Holland for the night. Then back to via the tunnel.

Out we go to follow the fat black strip home. Chore to door. 800 miles in autopilot, mind back in muse control. Now is the golden hour. The Bitch is relaxed and happy. She’s not threatening to eject me any time soon. My mind can stand down the emergency team and allow itself a little time to indulge in some introspection To have an honest word with itself before its invaded with the everyday. Food shopping. Worming the sink and unblocking the dog. Brushing the lawn and watering the cat. The usual bollocks we all fill our days with.

And this is where is gets tricky. How can you really be honest with yourself? It’s a very difficult thing to do. Honesty often involves being critical. Opening wounds and not just stopping as soon as your brain tells you stuff you don’t want to hear. Fuck I spend half my time on these trips ripping off old scabs and picking at them till they bleed. I drive myself to tears looking at what an absolute cu*t I’ve been at times in my life. I really don’t know why my mind does this to me. Perhaps wearing a helmet stops these thoughts from just evaporating as they normally would. Perhaps it’s guilt and this is penance from all this selfish pleasure I get to experience when I’m away. I can, without any doubt be a quite monumental prick at times though and I can often be completely dismissive of pretty well the rest of humanity too. I’m a complicated concoction of conflicting, often non complimentary characteristics. Parts of me are running about in my brain telling me to just stop typing. Nobody wants to hear this shit. And part of me doesn’t want anyone to know anyway. Part of me would love to go to a psychiatrist and get some sort of analysis, but another part of me would be extremely disappointed with myself if I did. I should delete all that. Or maybe not. Sometimes I feel like I just say ‘help me’, but only in an extremely quiet whisper. Fuck I don’t know. Just get me the dog and a plunger and let me get back to normal.

Fact is we’re all many things. We all have different faces, some more than others. Even my forever patient and understanding wife only knows a few me’s. There are many many me’s that she will never ever meet. We all walk a very fine line and jump from one person to another to make our passage through life as smooth as possible.

Part of the lure of these trips is the fact that I take off that pressure to conform and do what I think is expected of me all the time. If I get up and the absolute c*nt personality won the fight to inhabit me for the day then I just let it knock itself out. This isn’t real life. I don’t have relationships to maintain. I just have to live with myself. On this trip I’ve had a LOT of spectacularly happy days when I’ve just twisted the wrist and watched the world go by. Where opening the door in a hotel or a cafe has been like unwrapping a present. When laugher has just erupted for no reason. When just a look has made me well up inside. I’ve had grey days when I’ve felt completely vacant. I’ve had days where my head has felt fit to burst with the pressure of trying to work a way out of a problem. I’ve had days I’ve wanted to be anywhere else but where I am, and other days I just wanted to go on forever. I’ve had everything I want and more

And as much as Shit and Happens have driven me to distraction at times, these trips would not be the same without those little tosspots. They have exercised all my ingenuity and patience and have taken me right right down to the bottom but the high that comes with the climb back out has always been more than worth the trouble. They’ve scared the fucking bejesus out of me on a few occasions too. I remember mentally checking out once or twice, convinced it was all over, only for the chaos to choose to open a gap rather than close tight right in front of me. They also seem to have completely screwed my attitude to danger. Like they’ve gone into a secret room in my head, found a big red switch and just flicked it off. It’s really not healthy. You wouldn’t want me to do a risk assessment for you, you can be sure of that

Anyway, time for a stop at a place that inspires absolutely no emotional response. None at all. Fuck, I thought that persona had been deleted years ago. That one has got me into trouble on more than one occasion. I don’t want the wife to know its still in there somewhere either.

Then another. A spanking new bakery that’s had a woman called ’sunflower’ come in as a consultant and wave her arms about shouting about trends and vibes and instagram stories but managed to create a lifeless, soulless and completely anodyne experience. Why can’t these people just leave these buildings the fuck alone. The buildings have far more character than the vacuous oxygen thieves that come in to ‘transform’ them. Grips my shit!

Its getting bloody hot and my tongue has swollen up to a big round lump giving me two options. I either hire myself out for extreme cunnilingus or I call the emergency dairy hotline. My call is answered immediately and I’m told to meet them at the nearest Lidl ASAP for treatment. The dairy dealer meets me, goes and grabs a cold cow from the fridge and holds it over my head, squeezing the teats into my mouth until milk starts coming out my ears. When I walk to the bike I make a sound like feet in wellington boots full of water. Absolutely perfect.

Get into Holland, land of the ‘saddle sniffers’. Apparently this is slang for cyclists who have a habit of cleaning or inspecting their saddles. I’ve always thought it was about an all together different activity. Hey. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. Get to my brothers place and meet reality again. Not the full-on reality, but an essential part of the rehabilitation process for me.

Get The Bitch out the garage and get out on the road to Calais. I do love . I really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, and as much as I love to travel there is no way I could do it forever.

Before I know it I’m back outside my house. Back where I started, all done and dusted. At some point in the future it will be the very last time, but not this time. I’m not done yet. And neither is The Bitch.

This trip has been an unusual one. In some ways the worst, but in other ways the best, but ultimately it’s been a bust and I’m going to have to come to terms with that as the nights draw in and I hibernate in front of a roaring fire. When this persona roams around in the winter darkness of my head, never being allowed near any of the controls. Never been taken out for any exercise. Never been allowed near a keyboard. Never answering any questions. Never have anybody take any interest in it at all. This persona finds writing a cathartic exercise and an outlet for thoughts and emotions that are never expressed to any real live humans. You’re not real. You’re all just letters and emojis on a screen. You don’t actually stand in front of me and turn these words into any sort of reality. You don’t call my bluff. And that all helps me survive. So thanks for that. I really appreciate it.

So now the door is closing until the next time. Thanks for listening. Next time you see my normal everyday persona checking out, my stare going out to 1000 yards, my mind going into standby mode, and you hear the sound of faint footsteps running into the distance, you’ll have a good idea of just where I’ve gone

My GPS is incapable of working out any route here for some reason, which makes things very interesting as you get into a city. Get to the hotel and go out without thinking. There are just millions of OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE here aren’t there. Floods of them. Waves of them breaking over me wherever I go. I need some relief. I know. I’ll go and get a Russian to drag a razor blade across my jugular. That usually relaxes me. Only this one doesn’t look Russian, and when he starts to drag the razor I know this is a game of neck, blade, A&E. Luckily he chickens out before I do and starts to use an electric razor instead.

Kaliningrad is like any other Russian city. Why did I expect anything else? You don’t know unless you try I guess.

As a gentlemen of a certain age, I spend 99% of my life like this

Kaliningrad was “significantly damaged” in the war but they’ve built back in the original style. Absolutely shit tonnes of Russians out enjoying the sunshine. Same same but different

Now, let’s play guess the bedroom theme today. Given that that this is the outside, what do you expect my room too look like.

Well, I didn’t quite expect this

I want to get away early today. I’ve got to put some miles after I get out of Kaliningrad. Coffee and cake. As good if not better than at home. Russia mostly imports coffee from Brazil and Vietnam. Probably not the finest beans good enough for me. Remember there are 105 rubles to the pound. Coffee and 2 cakes. £3. Makes you think doesn’t it. We’re so used to being screwed we lost contact with any value for money years ago.

I’ve got to get Brian some hand cleaner. I went to 2 tool shops yesterday. No luck. The last place gave me an address of a place down on the docks. Not easy to find with no satnav and a miss-behaving Bitch I forgot what i came here for. Was it a lady decorator wearing low cut jeans and a tight T shirt? Oh well I’ll buy a couple anyway. It’s good to have a spare for when one is full

No bloody hand cleaner though. And now I have to find my way out to the border form the badlands too. Bugger the hand cleaner. On the outskirts I ride past a scrappy car park with a big old sign saying something like ‘The End of the World shop’. Turn around, go in and sure enough it sells everything from car tyres to body bags to plastic garden animals, food, drugs, guns, knives , and hand cleaner. With grit. Only 2 tubes left though. Turns out that after the apocalypse it’s really important to keep your hands clean.

Head out towards Poland. It’s wet and cold and I’m hypersensitive. The Bitch is not well. For the last few days she’s been randomly trying to kill me. I’ll go to turn and it feels like the bars are locked solid. She won’t turn or she’ll just barely turn. Scares the shit out of me every single time. If it’s what I think it is,I just hope it will hold up a few more days.
Stop at the loneliest petrol station in the world for some cheap fuel and even cheaper cancer sticks for the blokes at work. I was going to buy some sweets, but sweets are bad for you.

The queue is very short but it’s the same as when as when I was waiting to come in this border a few weeks ago. Cars with german plates but Russian speaking passengers.

Done inside and hour and on to Poland…

which takes more than twice as long.. so I decide to get brut force and ignorance out the panniers. I’ve noticed one of the suspension struts is protruding more than the other so I loosen everything off and pull the suspension through to make them the same, as you do.

But while The Bitch is on the centre stand I turn the bars and there is a very nasty graunching noise from the head bearings. Sounds like a 90 year old doing the splits. BUGERTY TWAT WANGLES AND FLAPPY FANNY FARTS. That’s all I bloody well need. The front brakes are beginning to pulse again too, and I suspect they’re not releasing properly. That could be something to do with it. Still it’s only really a problem at junctions, roundabouts and slip roads. I’ll have to avoid them. I doubt there are many on the 1000 miles back home. I’ll just have to adopt the Clarkson philosophy. I’ll just ride a lot faster. That way I’d have a bigger accident, but I’d have less time to worry about it.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

My Russian mate has been counting eggs now. But he likes to deliberately throw a few on the floor first. He’s looked at the link to see The Bitch’s progress and thrown a mind grenade into my fragile truce. The bike is moving but it’s behind me and he reckons anything before the 3rd would be optimistic. I have absolutely completely and utterly had more than e-fucking-nuff of this now.

Back on the train we go. Another 24 hours and 1800km to Moscow. These trains are packed every single time.

I’ve sent the voices to separate rooms. I can’t deal with them right now. I just concentrate of hitting a mental tennis ball against the wall. Over and over and over again. I put up temporary diversion and road closed signs to try and stop me crashing.

Get to Moscow. End of the line for the Trans Siberian.

I’m inside the “where the fuck am I” zone for Google maps so have to navigate the old way, by just following the best pair of legs. It’s a bloody good job the tottieometer gave up the other day. If it had made it hear it would have taken my whole bloody arm off when it exploded. I’ve never seen anything like it. Jeeeesus Christ almighty.

I go out looking for food but it’s all to bloody much. This is the absolute complete opposite to what I came away for. When I have space I can let my mind stretch and let all the souls spread their wings. They can run about and play and keep out my hair () but here with all THESE FUCKING PEOPLE EVERYWHERE AND ALL THIS FUCKING NOISE AND TRAFFIC AND FUCKING DRUNKS LAYING ON THE FUCKING PAVEMENT AND ALL THESE FUCKING BLOODY ROADWORKS AND PAVEMENTS RIPPED UP AND FUNNELING THROUGH SMALL GAPS AND RUDE CUNTS BARGING THROUGH AND AHHHHHHHHHH I FUCKING HATE THIS PLACE. My head feels like a room full of screaming kids locked in on a rainy day. I need get out. I need to stand in a field and scream. I need to see nobody. Nobody at all.

Bitch minus 2. Yep. I said it. I’m counting. I held off as long as I could but there was going to be a riot otherwise.

Last night I made the mistake of going into a trendy coffee shop. You know the kind. Less is more. They do less that is and you pay a shit load more. I could see I wasn’t welcome immediately. Not their preferred brand of clientele. The barista looked like she had been in a piercing paintball fight and lost heavily. She also seemed to have a vijangle. I could hear her giblets jingling like a morris dancer as she wandered over to me. Face like an arse. That needed a good slapping. She served me a lukewarm warm cup of yesterdays coffee suds from the sink and charged me a weeks rent for it. Then proceeded to keep staring at me to leave. “Not until I’ve read a couple, let’s make that a couple of dozen chapters of my book love. Oh, and your giblets could do with a bit of WD40 when you have a moment”

Anyway, fuck that. Start today with a hot coffee and a delicious cake from the supermarket for a fraction of the price. And no annoying jingling either. Take a long walk in the sunshine. I’ve shoved a couple of fisherman’s friends up my chuff to take my mind off all these FUCKING ANNOYING PEOPLE everywhere. I hope it works.

And you don’t get this in London. You see a lot of these Belarusian tractors.. by the way did you know Belarus is famous for its tractors? No? I knew a woman that went to Belarus to visit the factory. Yes I did. Sad but true. Anyway they trundle round cleaning up the public spaces. Usually jetwashing the drunk’s chunder lumps and piss off the pavements and seats before anyone can slip over in it.

They tell you Russia has no money but everywhere seems to be being dug up, renovated and renewed. Perhaps all these blokes are doing it free and paying for the materials themselves. Maybe that’s the beauty of socialism.

Fuck it’s hot. As I amble along I begin to wonder. As I’m approximately 150m tall and have a one hundred hectare forehead perhaps I should offer it to the government as a site for a solar panel farm. Seems like a good idea. I’ll add it to my list.

There are a LOT of drunks in these streets. I saw a woman open the door of a supermarket today and chuck a huge bucket of water over one that was asleep on the shop step. The fucker never even flinched. Obviously a professional.

Still, there are plenty of other things to look at too.

Get to Red Square. Not even a slight blip on my bovveredometer. At least it’s open this time and not filled with scaffolding. Kremlin is closed though, as is Lenin’s tomb. Not really that busy though.

When I first came to Moscow back in about 98 it felt a proper Wild West city. Old cars everywhere. A real edge in the air. I can remember coming back from somewhere late at night and the person I was with just sticking a hand out to stop a random old car. Giving them a few quid to take us back. But now it’s lost that. It’s all shiny black Maybachs and BMWs. And loads of cars I’ve never heard of. I think this is a Jazzwangle.

And this is a HongkongFuey

And a “Tank”

I think brand loyalty is now a thing of the past. I’m sure my son would drive a “TingTong MuffBash CockSplash” as long as it had big wheels and Apple play.

The fisherman’s friends are beginning to burn through my anal cavity so I walk back and put a cold shower head up my colon before walking to the nearest park for a read. Count a couple more hours off. Every second is beginning to count now. Every. Single. Fucking. Second

Here is something else you don’t see at home. Instead of a local council spending millions of pounds and employing expensive foreign consultants to design some self cleaning system for tram junctions that invariably doesn’t work because has different kinds of leaves, Russia simply employs a woman with a skinny brush to do it.

Saw myself in a poster today too. See that. That’s me that is

And tonight I’ve treated myself to a lovely cold bottle of vintage moo-sel to celebrate what I hope is my last day wandering lonely as a clown. Tomorrow I go to see my Russian mate, and hopefully then my waiting is over.

 

 

Get to Yekaterinburg. It’s grey and cold and the area round the station feels like Precinct 13. I’m often such an arrogant twat I just assume everything will be fine. That bad will pass me by. But sometimes, like this, I get a sudden reality check and all my antennas start emitting warning signals. It can be a bit disconcerting. At least it’s light at the moment. And it all adds to the turmoil going on in my head.

Last time I counted eggs someone dropped the whole fucking box on the floor. Lesson learned. I’m taking this “two weeks” the woman at the freight office with a small pinch of salt, but she counted the eggs, not me.

My Russian mate worked out the tracking link for The Bitch. I looked at it last week and it estimated delivery 30th-3rd. But I never saw the link move. She said it was due to be leaving 25th (last Friday). My inner voices have negotiated a very fragile truce between themselves. The worriers won’t break out and attack as long as long as nobody checks the link. What they don’t know they can’t worry about. It’s a very delicate agreement and my head aches trying to keep it. I’ll have a look when I get on the train tomorrow.

I borrow an umbrella from reception and go for a long walk in the wind and rain. I have to keep telling myself I have the means to get out of this place and back to my reality. It’s all that’s keeping me sane. Poor poor me

After dinner i need to run the gauntlet into the ghetto to get something from the supermarket. It’s not something I would usually do but I leave the phone and my wallet back in the hotel, take the big underpass and pop up into the bad lands.

Someone sitting on a railing motions to my risk to ask me the time, yes mate, you think I’m stupid? Get to the supermarket and they’ve blockaded the entry door, I’m guessing because people were running in to grab something and running back out. Never seen that before. So go in the out, get my stuff and queue. Bloke in front is so fucked and drunk he can’t work out why the music he’s hearing isn’t coming from his headphones. Maybe it’s because the cord (yes, this is Russia remember) is hanging round his waste and not plugged in to his phone. It takes him 5 tries to open his wallet, then at least 10 tries to get his card out. Then there isn’t enough money on it for the two bottles of vodka on the counter. She takes one off, his card works, and he does a weak, dribbly smile before staggering away to find a dark hole out of the rain. Fuck this. I’m increasingly feeling like a fish out of water, and I’m beginning to drown.

There is only one thing for it now. Porn.

Wake up and I find myself unable to get out of bed. I’m anchored by apathy. My brain not bovvered. My body in stasis and not obeying commands to move. The sky is grey. My mood is black. Why did I ever think this was a good idea? This is turning out to be a very strange journey indeed. I bet my long suffering wife is steaming too and that the garage floor is being dug up to either bury my bones, The Bitch, or both.

The primeval pang of hunger and Google’s recommendations of The French Baker 30 mins walk up the road levitate my body set it in forward motion. The fragrant and delicious coffee and cakes provide some sort of antidote to the apathy and I sit and make a simple plan for the day. I still feel like an animal in a cage, it just a fucking huge cage that’s all.

I think the main cause of my malaise is that on Plan A I would be at almost madness right now, bathing in self glorification, slapping myself on the back and worshiping The Bitch that took me there. It’s not as if I’ve never failed in my life but I’ve never missed a target by this wide a margin and it’s put a big puncture in my self confidence. One that at my age I may never properly fix.

When I drained the system on The Bitch the other day, the colour of the water from the radiator was a different colour from that in the jacket, and that leads me to believe the water pump needs an overhaul too. Not a big or expensive job and one that, obviously, I wish I had taken the time to do before leaving. When I do that, replace the radiator and both thermostats she’ll be ready for anything. But will she and I ever get the chance.

Wander about the city and realise that Russia is becoming normalised for me. I’m getting a bit desensitised to it now. Just Russian people doing Russian things in the Russian rain.

his city is where the Romanov royal family were slaughtered. There is a monastery a few miles out where there bodies were originally buried. This place seems to imply some sort of connection too. I’m no historian and in reality the whole world is a graveyard but it’s still interesting to pass by places where such significant events have happened.

I need another shave. I’ll ask google as usual. I asked someone in a shop yesterday and he recommended the same place. Only i didn’t know Google had a Danger-safety scale you could set on searches. Mine was set to ‘prepared to go unarmed into a danger zone’. That’s probably why I ended up at a hotel situated in an open prison. And the barber is the same. Turn off any arterial road and head into the darkness. Graffiti everywhere and the state of general deterioration increasing with every step. Not a place to stand about with an expensive phone taking pictures. I’ve left my wallet in the hotel again though. It’s probably fine. All my radars have increased their refresh rate but there are no red lights. There is a bloke standing outside the barbers smoking. It looks shut, but he is the barber and he lets me in and sits me down. He’s way too hairy for a Russian. “Türkiye”. Of course he is. He’s a professional though. No fucking about. He glides the razor round my face and I can nearly feel it touching. He’s done pretty quick and obviously wants to stretch it out a bit. He says something I interpret as “you look like you have two big vases of dead flowers in your nose. Would you like me to remove them?” Ok. “And your ears look like a 70s porn bush”. Oh really? Better sort them out then. It’s the usual hot wax earbuds for nose but for the ears he goes full Viking. You know those fucking great burning touches they carry at Viking funerals that they throw onto a burning boat? Well he whips one of those out suddenly all I can hear and see is a flame as big as my head and my (filled) nostrils are registering a smell like when your cat accidentally jumps onto burning gas ring (Just me? Ok then). He dusts away all the siringed hair, pulls the two furry toilet brushes out my nose and scrubs my face with puddle water mixed with gravel. Works a treat. Worth every penny. And now it doesn’t feel like there is a field of corn blowing in the wind every time I breathe through my nose.

Now, I’m not generally a paranoid bloke but I think I’ve been targeted by the RLSS. That’s the Russian Lesbian Secret Service. I first saw these two outside the bakery this morning, then I saw them again later in a shopping mall a couple of kilometres away, and then they walked past me again this evening outside the hotel. Maybe they’re part of the KGBTQ+ task force. I’ll have to watch my step.

I noticed a building in less than perfect repair just up from my hotel that appears to maybe have a helipad on the roof and possibly the remains of a transmitter. I can only speculate as to what happened there. They probably just had a really really big party that got out of hand. These things happen.

Fuck I’ll be glad to get out of Yekaterinburg. This miserable, grey, wet and cold place. Go back to the bakers and buy a big sugar rush but it’s not enough. Fuck let’s please just get out of here.

I’ve got 5 hours to kill at the station. It’s like a turd covered in human flies. Loads of obvious non Russians begging and staring at your bags. Lurking and watching. It’s a fucking god awful place to be. It’s such shame. These beautiful old buildings deserve better than to be floating with human pond life.

 

 

 

Ping. Off I go. Another unknown street. And this is where you quickly see how thin your cloak of invincibility is. I’m walking along and a bloke approaches me quickly from the shadows by a shop. He looks like he’s on something. He’s in close and he says something to me. I reply английский and that’s obviously not what he wanted to hear. He immediately shouts “Fuck. Shit”. He starts hissing like a cat dragging his feet on the pavement like a bull. My body goes into distraction mode. My sphincter collapses quicker than the Titan mini sub, launching my butt plug with lightening speed across the road and through the window of a florist resulting in an explosion of glass and petals filling the street. I make haste and flee the scene before the flower police turn up. Still, these things happen. Nobody was hurt, bar a big bunch of begonias.

This city has a bit of a fizz about it to be honest. Like Moscow. There definitely bad stuff happening here. Lots of high end performance cars absolutely belting about and obviously above the law. I saw one just now. A police car was going along at about the speed limit and a white Mercedes went past him like a fucking missile. Maybe his flashing lights are just broken.

Wander about in the sunshine, watching the world go by. There is a park with some old attractions in. You can imagine that Americans wouldn’t get a thrill out of any of it but the Russians have balls for sure. Would you get on an old roller coaster whose repair and maintenance schedule is, I suspect, solely dictated by the intermittent deaths of its punters.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day, and another train. I just hope The Bitch managed to catch her train.

This was supposed to be a story about a motorcycle adventure. It’s quickly turning into the unamusings of a mixed up mind trying to self diagnose and treat itself. Walking round the edge of a bottomless pit and trying not to fall in.

Today is another hiatus. A stutter. A pause. Today’s train doesn’t leave until 5:30. Another 20 something hours 3rd class 1000 mile upper bunk journey to Yekaterinburg. More time to kill. If I was my old father-in-law I could easily waste a whole week sitting on the toilet, no problem at all, but I can’t. Mind control. Keeping the dark clouds at the horizon. Time is a fierce foe. You try wishing it away it just crawls slowly over you instead. I feel like I’m standing in front of one of these, and that’s days not minutes.. I bloody hope not.

My tottieometer has finally gave up the ghost this morning too. Russia, in summer, with diaphanous dresses and fierce sunlight has simply overloaded it with too many targets. I was walking back from a coffee shop and I could see one on the horizon. As we got closer the totteometer moved quickly into the red and by the time she was within 100m it just exploded in my hand. You can imagine the mess. I’m just going to have to go manual from now on.

I don’t take pictures of them anymore though. I know I’ve crossed into the creepy zone. Time and decomposition has reduced me to a rattly old bundle of bones loosely wrapped in a bag of wrinkled skin with a small sprinkling of grey on top. A human no woman under the age of 170 would look twice at. I’m like a pencil with a rubber. A thin artist’s brush that’s lost most of its hairs. Pointing a camera at young women nowadays will quickly get me onto a register I don’t want to be on, especially out here. I just have to let the adolescent male in my head run about trying not to trip over his tongue whilst the old bloke on the outside carefully walks the tottie tightrope and shows no interest.

I went to the gun shop for my rations. Walking about in leathers in 30 degrees puts a certain shine on my five foot forehead and the bloke took me to show me the things I should be wearing to reduce perspiration. Nice, but expensive Seeings as I’m unlikely, hopefully, to be targeted by a heat seaking drone, I gratefully decline. He asked me if I was riding alone too. “Da” I think he was genuinely surprised. I’ve not seen another foreign plate here anywhere except for the Mongolian bikers. Certainly makes me think. Maybe it makes me think what some of you are probably thinking too. But it’s too late now. The only way is west. Shit or bust.

Walk all the way up to catch the train. I’m like the bike, leaving a trail of water as I go. Sit down, I’ll have a read. Or maybe not. I’ve left the fecking bloody toss twatting tit wringing kindle at the hotel Back I trudge. Spend 10 minutes in the bogs trying to turn my sweat glands down. Everyone looks at me like I’m a vagrant. I’m a baggy bag man. Two plastic carriers in my hands. Stinking like a hostage thats been held underground for 3 years without a wash.

Get the kindle back, drip drip drip my way back and get on the train. This one turns out to be 2nd class. I wondered why it was twice the price but grumpy ticket nana was on such a roll I couldn’t stop her. This one is 4 berth cabins. 28 to a carriage rather than 50 odd in 3rd. Twice the price but half the fun.

And just like any country we see the difference between propaganda.

And reality

What do you need at 10:30pm in the middle of bum fuck nowhere? Smoked fish. Of course you do

And a couple of Nanas to see you through the night

Maybe I’ll have to order the special services nana I see disappearing into a cabin.

Still, eating Russian army rations (very nice by the way) at sunset on the Trans Siberian railway is a memory that I’ll keep coming back to I’m sure.

I do love sleeping on trains. Maybe it takes me way way back to being a small child and being rocked to sleep by a parent’s foot. The trains put a proper spurt on in the night and you can hear the worn wheels hammering along the rails. Shuddering and struggling to hold on. I have visions of the train leaving the tracks and our chubby nana flying through the carriage like a massive meaty meteorite wiping everyone out.

She’s a nice lady though, and gets some tough gigs on these trips. It turns out these army rations have the added benefit that the consumer produces food babies the size of tank shells. I sat and stretched to near breaking point this morning, sweating and growing like a wounded animal and gave birth to a pair of shiny 30 pounders, let’s calls them Ant and Dec, that flatly refused to succumb to the super suction of a Russian train toilet. They blocked the hole and it poured water in to make a concoction like a massive messy latte. The train’s motion made it like two year old trying to carry a cup of coffee full to the brim across a school playground. I tried various solutions but only made it worse. It was definitely Nana Time. She went in without any fear armed only with rubber gloves and a stick and beat Ant and Dec into submission with a satisfying “POP”. Big up chubby Nana

 

I know all this bollocks sounds like the moaning and of complaining of a petulant, privileged, selfish c@nt. Which it is.

My currently installed personality is exactly that. I know it. I confess to you and through that I absolve myself. But I’m still a c@nt, same as any other. The exact same person before entering the confessional as the one leaving the booth.

I do receive regular treatment though. The other day when I left Baikal I stopped in a small petrol station when my foot got too hot to carry on. I was just sitting there. A spoiled brat. Someone who doesn’t know how lucky they are. There was a petrol pump attendant sitting next to me. A youngish man of obviously limited intellect. I asked him if there was a hose I could use to cool down the bike. We wandered round the back of the petrol station amongst the rubbish and we came to a small hut thing. It looked like a converted unit of the back of a small truck. The door was open and I could see that inside was a bed. The room was absolutely filthy. Deep in grime and absolutely unfit for human habitation. I asked him if he lived there. He looked at me, shook his hands and said he ate in there. But there was definitely more too it. I rode on to the bike stop. And he will still be there.

And it does make me think. Honestly it does but my fucking brain is always in such a rush and so busy arguing with itself it quickly forgets. In my more lucid moments I do think about luck. Luck and good fortune can take you amazing places and to incredible highs, but luck can also stop you from falling back into massive shit and a life of misery. As long as I’m feeling ok and I have the means to get home, however convoluted that journey is, then I know I’m a lucky man.

Until my brain finds its next rabbit hole to run down

I was woken in the night by someone announcing Australian traffic reports over the radio with Lady Gaga singing in the background. In my head. What the actual fuck is wrong with me. I’m beginning to think I should not be left alone, especially by soapy short shaven shower maidens with long nails and rough loofahs…. Here we go again.

So I leave my most precious and irreplaceable travel essentials safely locked behind a very worn 50p door handle at a cheap hotel in area full of transient people and go to get some money changed.

Get to another bank. Walk in and it’s like Britain’s Got Talent. There are 4 desks with 4 people staring at me. It’s empty but they still make me take a ticket from the machine that immediately points me to kiosk 7 where a pretty lady has obviously been waiting for me since yesterday. I ask her to change some money and she smiles and points to her exchange rates. “Very bad” she smiles. She gets her phone out and gives me the name of another place round the corner. “Much better”

“But I’d rather pay the extra and watch you and your pretty slim hands count out money for me..” says the voice in my head before the financial controller tells to stop being such a twat and to do as I’m told. Go to the suggested bank. Empty again. Straight to the exchange. Brush the dust off the teller. I cannot begin to think of the mind bending boredom sitting in a 3 foot square booth every day just to serve someone once every 6 months. How do they do it? Anyway, the rate is 6% better, and she’s got nice hands too. I have a thing about hands. Is that normal?

But why is this happening? Where are shit and happens? Perhaps they slept in. They really have been excelling themselves lately. A mate of mine swears he heard chuckles in his wild camp site before finding himself locked in the next morning in Austria. If they’ve been screaming about Europe they’re going to be tired. Hopefully their Russian visas have expired anyway, the little shits. I also get a love/hate message in the senders typical staccato style that nails my feet to the ground. Things like that help to keep me on the right side of sanity. Just.

I’m after a fridge magnet. There is an underground shop selling all sorts stuff from swimming awards to bullet bubble gum. In typical old soviet style there is a 10 to one staff to potential client ratio. I wonder if it’s a bit like that “if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound” question. “If there are no clients in the shop, do all they all turn to stone?” Keep them occupied. Keep them quiet. The old soviet maxim.

Go to the supermarket to get some provisions for the train. I went on the Trans Siberian from Vladivostok to Moscow in 2018. 7 days straight 3rd class. No food onboard. Had to buy food where I could from nanas secretly selling it out of bags on remote lonely platforms. Starvation. Hallucinations. Considered eating my own arms. Never again.

Go the station and wait. Should be fine. The notice board is all nice and obvious.

This first leg is 28 hours and around 1000 miles. Cost me £50. Again there is no restaurant car, just a hot water boiler, and again I’m travelling 3rd class in an ‘open sleeper’. I booked late so I got an upper bunk. There is nowhere to just sit unless you have a lower one, or unless someone invites you to sit with them. I’m across from two mums and their kids. A couple of them speak good English and want to talk. Nice people. Polite people. Smart people.

This train only stops at a few stations overs its journey. Most are for just a minute but every so often they pause for 15-20 minutes to let the dogs out for a poo and let the passengers coat their lungs in enough nicotine to make it to the next stop. People come, people go, like a bath being filled with the plug out.

Got to Novosibirsk about 10pm, said до свидания to my temporary train mates and trudged to the same hotel I was in here about 10 days ago. I wouldn’t have predicted this but maybe that’s what the constant tightness in my chest was warning me about. Maybe that was the finger of fate pushing trying to push me back from trouble ahead. Who knows how it works. As long as I have a plan then it keeps the gate of my mind’s chaos corral closed. It’s when I don’t that things very quickly get out of hand.

This morning I have a plan for a plan, but looking at the Russian train website there are only 2 tickets available on leg 2 and 1 on leg three. At this point the corral gate gets shaken. Someone goes to my armpits and turns the irrigation on max while another goes downstairs and draws in the cock drawbridge to the absolute max to the point where I now have what looks like the small red on/off button to your remote control in place of any male identifying equipment. I’m currently identifying as “plangender”

Go to the station, get a ticket for a ticket and manage to not loose it before being directed to grumpy nana number 5. Google translate is great, for opening the door to a verbal torrent. I show nana the details of the first train I want to take tomorrow. She’s bashing the keyboard and asking quick-fire questions and I get flustered. You’re speaking through mics and it’s all very fast and she looks furious. I just keep nodding and sticking my thumb in the air until she stops talking. Seems the easiest way. And I get a piece of paper that looks right. Then I do it again for the train to Moscow, getting the last 3rd class bunk on the train. Thank fuck for that. Either shit and happens are taking therapy or they’ve got their little arses arrested somewhere. Well they overstretched themselves this trip and they deserve it

Coffee and cake. Sit and unwind the drawbridge out a bit and let the steam flow from my armpits. Lock the gate. I have a plan.

I have all day to kill. I step into the Novosibirsk pinball machine, someone pulls out the hammer and BOOM, off I go. Taking whatever direction pedestrian crossing is showing green, listening to the chimes, watching the lights flash, pinging off to the next bump stop.

I’m in a small mall. Walking off the top of the escalator. It’s the gun shop. I imagine it feels like walking towards a sex shop. I’m intimidated but curious, slightly stimulated but scared. My Winkyometer can’t decide on a drawbridge setting either. I set it to “stumpy” and in I go.

FUCK ME This is serious stuff in here. There is absolutely everything you could want here. I’m wandering about thinking Jeeesus Christ Almighty. I think about taking some surreptitious pictures but I’m worried they might put a rocket up my arse, quite literally. So I hatch a plan.

I’ve spotted some army rations. I ask if I can eat these cold because I want some for the train but he says they are better hot. He shows me some special bags you can buy to warm them up with “in the field”. I ask if I can take a picture, he says yes, and just points around the shop. Ok then.

You’ve got rifles, scopes, pistols, knives, crossbows, axes. You’ve got all the kit. Camo, boots, gloves, hats, numerous fuck knows what to do fuck knows what. You’ve got full on body armour including thick metal plates tag weigh a TON. You’ve got helmets and full forest camouflage/chubacca suits. Everything.

Including RPG launchers

With clear instructions

I’m guessing they’re doing good trade at the moment. There are certainly significant numbers of soldiers walking about round here. I’ll go back tomorrow and get my rations, and maybe a few grenades for presents when I get home. The kids will love them.

 

 

I say my goodbyes, ride through the gate and head 50 miles back towards Irkutsk. I’m desperately trying not to look at my boots. I want to look. I don’t look. “Doooooont loooook”.. “ok, I won’t look”. “You want to look don’t you? do you want me to look for you” “Nope. I’m not going to look.”

I look. And it’s all dry. But I’ve only been 50m.

I’m approaching the area where the freight company is. It’s got to be wrong. It’s in some sort of ghetto. Down a long rough dirt track, then another, turn right.. well this is nice. There are, of course, new and shiny freight forwarding facilities in Russia. Someone at the bike post suggested one, but I thought I’d use the one my Russian mate had used in the past. Why in God’s fucking name do continuously make the wrong decision. WHHHYYYYY. You could give me one choice. Just ONE. And i would STILL make the wrong decision.

I go in. See a lady behind a screen. Tell her I want to freight my motorcycle to Moscow. “First go to green shed and come back here”. Ooooo k then. The green shed is round the back. A warehouse amongst old railway carriages and there is a tired, clapped out crane loading one lump of coal at a time into some train wagons, belching out thick black smoke and threatening to explode. It’s like a film set from some terrible depressing dystopian future.

A little bloke comes out and motions me to ride round the side and up the ramp, into the damp darkness. The Bitch is nervous. She doesn’t want to go. She’s whinnying and stamping her feet. She is growling her displeasure. She’ll be fine. It’s the poor bastards that have to share the journey with her I’m sorry for.

I drain the fuel. Remove the screen. Tape the helmet to the bike. Little bloke takes weights and measurements. Gives me a form. And I go to the office. That was easy. Too easy. Go to the woman at the glass. Hand her my form. Answer a few questions . Pay about £450 and she hands me a slip of paper. Done.

I’m feeling something is wrong. I can hear chuckles behind me. I can feel a shitstorm rushing towards me. “How long?” I ask. I feel shit and happens both grab an ankle each. “About two weeks”. My legs go from under me and I feel them being pulled apart. They drag me to a post and twat my bollocks so fucking hard I feel like I’ve got 3 Adam’s apples. Two weeks! Two fucking bloody sodding what the fuck am I going to do for two shitting bloody wanking weeks. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

WELL THAT HAS WELL AND TRULY DROPPED A BIG WARM CURLY TURD RIGHT INTO MY PORRIDGE
Two weeks without the bike. That’s a prison sentence. I’m going to have to tread very carefully with my cash and maybe beg my Russian mate if I can sit in his outside toilet…

I feel very heavy. Weighed down by having shit and happen and all their extended family from around the world on my back. The lady orders me a taxi. Maybe I should order a black one with a box in the back. But I get a small Peugeot instead. No room to lay a lanky streak of piss like me to rest in there so I better just get on with it.

I’ll stay by the station. Always the best area in town. Go to the first cheap hotel. “Niet. Russian passports only”. Trudge round the corner in the heat in my leathers. Speak to the Russian sulking champion 5 years running, get a cheap cell next to the road. A tram just went past and the rumble went through the room.

Let the purgatory begin.

You might want to put a note in your diary at this point to return to this nonsense in a couple of weeks when I’m hopefully reunited with my Bitch and I’m riding her into the sunset. Until then you’re likely to get very bored by the musings of an old bald bloke sitting on a random bed with only a keyboard for company. You have been warned..

You know that famous picture of astronaut Bruce McCandless II floating completely untethered with the earth below and the infinity of space around him? Only a backpack to get him back? Well that’s what I feel like right now. I know that’s being overdramatic but that’s the mood I’m in today. “Today Mathew! I’m going to be a drama queen”. I have money. I have a very helpful and kind Russian mate that gave me a life saving Russian sim with a phone number and data, and I have my life experience. I hope that’s enough. Fuck I could always just go and grab a policeman and scream help I suppose and jump onto a long and complicated officially assisted road out but I’d rather try and go manual.

I went to the station this morning to buy a train ticket. Plan is to move slowly along the trans Siberian back to Moscow over the next 10 days or so, stopping off for changes of scenery more than anything. I’m not a culture vulture. I can see as much as I need to see of a cathedral in approximately 20 seconds. I just need distractions.

I went to the ticket office. Pressed a button to get a ticket to wait, put it in my book, and waited. Number came up, went to kiosk, ticket was gone. Apparently all it took was 10 minutes for me to turn into a magician. I fanned and fanned the book. No ticket came out. Back to the machine, get another ticket, back in the book but with the top sticking out. Wait … Number comes up, go to the kiosk, fan the pages, 2 tickets fall out. No. I’m not making this up.

I’ve got to go and change some more money. There is a Siberia bank across town, that’s who I used before. Time for a walk, and a coffee.

Google says there is a coffee place in big derelict building with a spanky Maybach SUV parked outside. Walk in and there is a freshly polished and buffed Russian princess posing at the end table. Looking like a business woman but judging on the two other business women that enter after and usher her out the back, then I’m wondering what business they are actually in. Does anyone have a fetish to be pointed at accusingly with a pen by a dark bird with slim bronze legs and a pencil skirt? Or am I the first? Forget I said that.

Anyway she serves to distract me from the price of the coffee and the fact the building I’m sat in could collapse at any moment.

So let’s find the bank. It’s round here somewhere. It’s… shut. Not shut as in “open again tomorrow at 2”, shut as in “we’ve removed all the signage and furniture and fucked off” shut. Why am I not surprised. Find another bank. There are surprisingly few. Walk up, open the door, there is a bloke on a ladder working right in the way. There is absolutely no fucking way I am getting within touching distance of any bloody ladders. I’ll try again in the morning. Let’s just go walk about amongst the roaming Russians.

I get a text. It’s a weather warning and I can see it approaching so I head back. Walking across the bridge the wind is howling and throwing so much dust I can bearly open my eyes. It feels like it’s trying to rip the bag with my passport right out my hands. It’s all bollocks of course. It’s just my under stimulated mind getting on its exercise bike and blurring the pedals in a fit of pique. I do sometimes wonder what being on the spectrum must be like. Fuck, my brain feels ready to explode half the time.

Tomorrow I start moving back west towards the uk. Hopefully it will start to take some of the tension out of the extreme pull I’m feeling towards home.

 

 

Through the evening a few other souls roll in to stay. A father and daughter. A couple of bloke on big Harleyesque bikes. They’re friendly too. Maybe it’s just a biker thing. Fingers crossed tomorrow is less stressful day. I could do with one.

A very fitful sleep in a grubby bed. There are other souls somewhere in the dark that I can hear. I’m wondering if they are all in the present, or if some are in the past. Speaking from the walls.

In the middle of the night I hear banging. Proper HARD banging on the front door. It’s a big fuck off metal contraption and they won’t get through it but they’re having a proper go at it. I suspect they are some bikers turned up very late and want to stay but there is no way I’m getting up and opening it. Nobody else seems to care and after a while I think whoever is banging’s hands turn to pulp and they have to stop. I’ll check for blood in the morning. As long as it’s on the outside of the building and not the inside I’m happy.

It’s Sunday and I’m going to stay here until tomorrow then ride directly to the freighters and try to start the return process. It feels like a cop out. A failure. A bust. A missed adventure. My latest plan was to go into Mongolia and loop back into Russia and home but with only a thin slab of glue applied by an oily mechanic holding back a potentially head-fucking disaster I don’t want to push my luck any further. I could ride back the way I came but in truth it adds 3500 miles of radiator risk and absolutely no pleasure. I’ve ridden it twice now and I’ve no need to do it again. The first time in 2018 was great but now it’s a thundering tube of metal and madness. It’s changed, and not for the better.

I will always have the urge to get to almost madness. Always. And I have a plan for that, but not alone. So if you want to run the Russian gauntlet then you know who to call.

Anyway look at me. I’m level with the middle of China. The circumference of the word at this latitude is about 24.000km and I’m about 10,000 km from home. I’m about 40% the way round. Now is not the time for fucking about.

I finish putting the bike back together, start it up and prepare for the almost inevitable disappointment that is about to unfold. I leave it running and go to read my book. I do want to check. I don’t want to check. I want to check now. I’ll check in a minute. It’s like waiting for a baby to be born, or for the ball to stop on the roulette wheel.

I go to check. No water. I rev it a bit and wait. The fans come in. I turn it off to heat sync and leave it. No water. That’s a result. But experience has taught me not to count any chickens before they are hatched, roasted and sitting on a plate in front of me with roast potatoes and gravy. That’s my anxiety lowered for the next 5 minutes at least though.

So I walk down to the centre of town to get a haircut and shave. It’s Sunday, it will be closed, but no. Many pretty ladies in red uniforms are poised to cut what’s left of my hair. “английский” (English) .. errrr, one pretty lady is now poised to cut my hair. She has shave grades but hers are a like a set of kids stacking cups where 30% of them have gone missing. I pick the shortest. I think it removes the first layer of skin too.

Fuck knows what’s falling in my lap. That’s not my hair. Someone is standing behind her throwing hair from an 80 year old in my lap. FUUUUUCK…this shit. That’s not me. That’s not the adolescent soul ratting around inside my head. There can’t be a God surely. What god would slowly torture you, bend you over, loosen your skin, degrade all your senses and reduce your world to a point where you’re incapable of anything but breathing, whilst leaving your brain as though you were twenty. Who would worship a God like that?

Hair (singular) done. Now the shave. She won’t wet shave me which is a shame, but she is willing to run over my face with an electric razor. The result … is shit. I hope she does a better job on her lady garden otherwise sex for her husband will be like being pulled naked through a newly harvested corn field by a Lamborghini tractor driven by The Stig. Still, if I need any sandpaper to use on my radiator I can now use my chin.

I’m getting some coffee from the supermarket for the bike stop. Something to contribute at least. There is a little old lady in front of me. She has 5 cheap shit pot noodles I assume are for her and a load of quality cat food that I assume isn’t. Her bloody cat is eating better than she is. So I pay ahead. Never done it before, but why not. She smiles. That’s enough.

I was going to take the bike for a test ride but I’ve chickened out. It’s stupid hot and I don’t want to do a mile more than necessary. My mind is going to be totally occupied by that bloody bike all the way (hopefully) home.

So now I’m sitting round a table with a load of Russians consuming vast amounts of alcohol and eating from various plates they’ve put together. It’s a nice place to be. A comfortable place. A happy place. Same people. Same pleasures. Different language. I show some of the bikers the radiator fix. They say if it had happened earlier in a big city I could have had it welded properly, but shit and happens never organise their jolly japes in that way. As long as it gets me home, I have absolutely no fucks to give.

“Remember the first rule I told you?”
“I must not count any chickens”
“Right. Never ever ever count your chickens. You know what happens if you count the chickens don’t you”
“There are 10 chickens”
“YOU COUNTED THE FUCKING CHICKENS? WHAT THE FUCK YOU STUPID SNIVELLING SACK OF SPUNKY PUSS. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU COUNT THE CHICKENS?”
“I like counting chickens. I’m a chicken counter”
“YOU UTTER UTTER TWAT”
“.. and clouds.. I like counting clouds too”
“CUUUUUNT. WELL THERE IS GOING TO BE PLENTY OF TIME FOR THAT NOW YOU PITIFUL PILE OF PUBIC EXCREMENT”

And I’d thought i had maybe bought myself a little luck this morning too
I was just about to abandon the dribbling drunken giggling Russians and head for bed last night when there is a sound of angry metal bees outside the gate. “Don’t open the gate” I cried but it was too late. A drunk Russian tripped and fell into the gate and open it went. Then through the gates came the Mongolian Horde. Ripping up the air and spraying benzine perfume everywhere. Nine bikes and 4 cars full of an assortment of men, women and children. Out they all came and into the building. Claiming beds and couches, getting big boxes of food out and cooking up clouds of smoke.

Mongolians. I think poor. I think yurts and desert. I think hunting on horseback and wrestling covered in fat. I think playing football with a dead sheep. I don’t think of them riding Harley Davidsons and modern Honda motorcycles. I don’t think of them as having cars even, yet here they are. One of them says hello in perfect English. He and his wife were educated in Wales and both speak English as well as most Englishmen. Their chaos is going to take a few hours to subside so I just stick some ear plugs in and go back to plan A. Sleep.

I’m up early because I plan to get to the freighters ASAP. Maybe they can get the bike on a train today. While I do want to leave, I’m also quite uncomfortable about leaving this temporary place of sanctuary. Going back out on my own into the scary Russian wilderness with a patched up radiator.

I’m wandering about making excuses that delay my departure. I’m looking at one of the riders’s Africa Twin. His back tyre is toast and he’s only just started his trip. My tyres are the same size.

Lady Luck is a busy lady. She cannot be everywhere at once and occasionally she can do with a hand. So i hand the Africa Twin rider my spare tyres. They should get him round his trip. And hopefully Lady Luck will get to hear and do me a favour in return one day.

But not today.

Don’t do this adventuring thing. Just don’t. Ever.

Woke up thinking what the actual FUUUCK have I got myself into here. This is really not good at all.

My Russian mate has given me an address of a ‘bike post’ about 100 miles away. These are a network of community run sort of road houses where bikers can meet, stay, eat and hopefully help each other. I’m thinking this will be a waste of time but it’s Saturday and the freighters he suggested will most likely be closed for the weekend.

Go to the garage. Fill the expansion tank with antifreeze.. again. Start her up and head off. The route back is steep and tortuous. The bike isn’t getting an easy ride but the gauge isn’t moving. The thing is though, my right foot is getting hot. It’s getting hot because it’s covered in hot water. Hot water that should be in the engine, not on my boot and leg. Stop after 50 miles and refill the expansion tank. This bike is not going to get me home in this state. That’s a fact.

I stop at a jet wash. To clear the radiator. Because that will fix it. NOT

Get to the location and it’s an abandoned building. BEAM ME UP SCOTTY. DO IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!

I hear footsteps approaching in the puddle of tears im sitting in with my thumb in my mouth. A bloke with a pork pie hat on. He points at the closed building, picks up his phone and looks at me. Someone will be coming in 10 minutes. Now all you lot who are hard anti-Russian haters can just fuck off right now. Forget what you see, what you read and what someone told you.

The Russian people are generally extremely helpful, very polite and show no animosity whatsoever. If today proves anything it’s that they’re good people. They look after each other and strangers too. Obviously that’s a generalisation but I would not get the same levels of help and patience in many countries I go to. Not unless there was something in it for them.

So we look at the bike. Water is dripping on the floor from the front. I can see at the top left of the radiator it’s all wet but that’s where the pressure cap is too. Water leaks are an absolute prize bastard to pinpoint at the best of times.

I know what’s coming. But I don’t want to do it. And The Bitch doesn’t want to get naked and be examined and poked at by Russian men. Well I’m afraid love this is what happens if you piss on my feet.

Take all the clothes off, and the tank. It’s all wet around the pressure cap but there is water everywhere. One of the blokes examines the pressure cap. Pokes it. Blows it. Declares it operational. Or should that be ‘Russian operational’ I get the torch and have a look at the radiator.

There is a mount just above the fans and at some time or another I have hit a speed bump the size of Alison Hammond and it’s actually bent the mount and compressed the top of the radiator. Cunty arse wanky knob pimples. Shit fuck shit shag and bollocks. FUUUCING HELLLL.

So now we go next level. Out comes the radiator. A bastard job. And here I have it in my hand. I can’t see a hole but I’m not Joe 90 and I don’t have glasses thicker than a submarine door. So we jump in a car to go and see a mechanic. We arrive just as a couple of SU-27 fighters scream over and head west.

The mechanic has spent the morning bathing in soot and oil. He’s like a miner/oil rig worker cross breed. I’ve never seen anything like it. Jeeeeesus Christ almighty. I walk in through a gate and a rabid dog comes running only to be drawn up by a chain an inch from my leg. Another old bloke is sitting smoking. Pissed as a fart. But what a face this bloke has got. A proper old face with a map of his life etched into his skin. Clear blue eyes swimming about in a mist of cigarette smoke. I want to take his picture, but he doesn’t look too friendly.

The oily chimp grabs my radiator, starts up a small compressor and sticks a rubber bung in the upper hose hole, holds his hand over the lower hole and gets his mate to stick his finger in the other one while they dip it in an old bathtub full of filthy water.

And there are bubbles. The radiator has a hole in where it has compressed. I’m out of swear words by now. I just grab shit and happens and squeeze the little bastards until their eyes nipples and balls stick out. YOU LITTLE FUCKERS.

Oily chimp issues instructions to someone and I jump back into the car to go to the local Petrol Station/bakery/porn/automotive pastes and potions shop. The bloke I’m with doesn’t know what exactly to buy so I do a supermarket sweep and pay half their yearly turnover. Back to the oily chimp and he declares one of the selections suitable and then proceeds to destroy my radiator by rubbing it hard with a piece of sandpaper manufactured some time around 1910 and used constantly since. He pours on some cleaning fluid, makes up the aluminium glue and slaps it in. Then tells us to fuck off for 20 minutes.

Outside the front of the place there is an old bus. The door is open and I go and sit down for a cold drink. Blue eyes comes in and sits across from me. This is one of those times where the world goes quiet. Where there are only you and him. You can focus on nothing but his face.

He starts talking. I don’t understand most of it and he had a very croaky voice. I suspect from what he says he has throat cancer. He’s got some gold teeth and I ask him about them. Turns out he was a boxer. I can see it in his nose. You’re so fixated on the eyes you don’t notice much else. I look at his hands. He gabs my hand and he pulls, hard. I pull hard back. He starts to smile. We’re there both pulling against each other, smiling, minds meeting. It’s a rare spell and it’s soon broken by oily chimp coming on and saying the radiator is done. I make bubble noises to ask if he tested it and he just laughs and smiles too. “You think I’m an amateur?”. I dunno mate. I’ll find out later.

The driver takes me back to the bike stop. I ask if I can stay a couple of nights. He says stay as long as you like, then buggers off and leaves me all alone in the building.

This would never work in . There are tools here. There is a kitchen with a fridge and cooker. Washing machines. And a shit load of “hot beds”. Choose one and hope the last occupant didn’t have anything nasty. I’m past caring. Way way past.

I start putting the bike back together but I don’t start it and test it. If I tell myself it will be ok I might sleep tonight. If it’s still fucked I don’t want to know until tomorrow.