When I wake up this morning and sit up, the pillow comes with me. My beard has Velcro’d itself to my chin in the night. It’s now as long as my, almost nonexistent, hair and it’s difficult to work out which way up to put my head on in the morning. I need to get that sorted today.
But first I need to attend to The Bitch. She is due a blood transfusion and I know just the place. Zorro’s. Owned by a Swiss bloke, obviously. They rent bikes and also space and facilities for you to do things like change the oil. Or in The Bitch’s case, conduct an enema.
Get the tools out and it seems the rough roads have triggered the can of tyre sealant in the panniers. It hasn’t even sealed the holes in my tool bag. Fuck load of use that would have been then.
Anyway, I buy her the most expensive oil they have. Fully synthetic Motul 10/40. She more than deserves it. Adjust the chain a fraction, tighten some bolts and she’s ready for another 5000 miles back to her bed.. hopefully.
Fire her up, ride her back to the hotel and she’s purring away like the Cadburys Bunny… if she were a kitten.
Get out to find a beard doctor. But first my lips. They’re buggered. Chapped, sunburned and bone dry like I’ve been kissing The Bitch’s red hot engine goodnight. Walk into a chemist, point at my lips, and Katie Perry hands me a strawberry chapstick with a wink. She’s gone off cherry apparently.
Find a barber but they don’t wet shave. First world problems. So he uses a chainsaw instead. Whatever works.
Descend into the dark world of the have nots. Where people sit on a pavement all day everyday selling the same thing as the people either side of them until they die, whereupon their body is removed and the next generation takes over.
Five minutes walk and I’m in a cafe with the haves. Latte, warm mini quiche and a chocolate tartlet (I do love a tartlet). ‘How much?’ ‘£3 please’. ‘I beg your pardon?’ Ridiculous. You get so used to big numbers nowadays it’s often quite shocking.
I went back to the market to find something to secure my screen. I really wanted some ‘fat bird knicker elastic’ but all they could offer was something with the tension of a Thai tart’s tickle tackle. Markets always make my camera happy though
The Bitch knows it’s time to head towards home now. She’s caught the scent and she wants to run. If you habitually walk out and leave immediately after the climax then it’s been nice having you along for the ride. I appreciate your eyes making writing this fantasy/fact hybrid worthwhile. If you’re going to stick around as I descend from this euphoric high and back to reality then you’re more than welcome to stay and (hopefully) watch the miles roll by. I’d be very happy to have you along. Who knows, it might even be fun.
I point the little motorcycle on my satnav north and we’re off. Homeward bound. Still a long way off but every turn of the wheels is taking me in the right direction.
The whole morning my lungs are being beaten black and blue. I don’t want to breathe in. If it’s not the black spot of an overloaded 50 year old truck struggling up a mountain at 5mph, then it’s the blue smoke of an ancient Mercedes saloon with piston rings that fit the bore about as tightly as a catholic with 15 kids fits his wife.
Luckily I have a solution. K&N, purveyors of washable motorcycle air filters contacted me before this trip and asked me to prototype a pair of washable lung linings that travellers like me can have fitted. It’s not a pleasant operation. Removing and washing them is also an uncomfortable experience. And children, always remember not to remove lung lining 2 when lung lining 1 is still drying over the back of a chair. I did. I nearly died. Good job I can hold my breath for 20 minutes.
Anyway I used my rest day wisely and washed my lung linings yesterday. The bath looked like the whole of a colliery had used it after a shift.
And today they’re getting another battering as we head up towards Bishkek. It’s a dull few hours fighting idiot drivers that seem to have come direct from the doctors having been told they only have minutes left to live.
My camera also asked for a sleep in too. Apparently I’ve been overusing it and now it insists that its shutter gets some shuteye.
But 60 miles from the hotel that all changes. Mountains, vividly coloured water and smooth twisty roads you say? It would be rude not to.
Tonight’s destination is Toktogul Lake. Just a small one. Nothing special. And we are the only guests in a huge old soviet hotel. You know how that story usually ends.
Well you didn’t expect me to just go cold turkey did you. There is plenty of time for that later. We.. well the Russian.. gets chatting to a few locals on the beach. All drinking vodka before driving 49km back home through the mountains. They give me a HUGE shot and look at me. Fuck. My empty stomach immediately sends messages to my brain to suspend all cognitive function and I’m immediately completely wankered.
Today in the last day in the mountains. Still they’ll still be here if I come back. As long as I don’t leave it 20 million years.
Our hotel is bathed in morning sunshine. Our destination mountains are getting bathed in rain. We can see curtains of it falling on the horizon. But we live in hope. After an hour or so the rain starts so we stop to put the gimp suits on. The Russian’s bike won’t turn over. ‘I know what this is’ he says as he goes all motorcycle gynaecologist, sticks his fingers inside his bike and pulls out its G-spot. He then proceeds to short across its 2 little pink terminals and with a big spark the bike leaps into life. He looks well versed at it. Maybe it’s how he gets his wife started. I did notice that the lead he used was pink with hearts on . Russian women are notoriously difficult to get going.. apparently..
Off-road tyres and rain go together like tits and scissors. And I’d have done well to remember that as I entered a small village in the storm. I see a dog on the side of the road. He’s going to go for me. He’s off and running and he’s obviously been in training. The bastard is on course for an imminent appointment with my front wheel. So.. I change down two gears, accelerate hard, and mimic a slow motion sequence from The Matrix. The back wheel just kicks straight out and I’m massively sideways (probably about an inch) The front tyre and the dog’s nose kiss gently just as I steer and throttle back to bring the bike back into line. The Bitch could have done that herself but sometimes she likes to dare me. I can feel her laughing between my legs.. that’s not the first time I’ve experienced that sensation either
We’ve got some high passes to cross and as we climb the temperature drops. In the summer the mountains are awash with bees making мед, but now all the bees have carefully cleaned the nectar off their fur with their little honeycombs and flown south for the winter.
Get to the top of the first pass and it’s down near zero. Time to put the smugglers on then But the budgie has flown. I checked the nest . it”s been completely abandoned.
The next 60 miles are fucking freezing. We climb another pass, through some snow clouds chucking it all over the road, through a long tunnel and emerge to a mercifully dry, but still nipple tensingly cold descent back to ground level to defrost.
The ride into Bishkek is the usual bitch. It’s a massive one way system. The one way to do it is to look after number one and ride like a water droplet running down a window pain. Dodge and weave and jig and jink your way though it.
My Russian friend wants to travel a bit less exuberantly than I do so tonight we’re staying at a hostel. Now. Listen. Next time you balk at the price of a hotel room compared to that of a hostel remember this. A hotel spends money on signage so you can find the fucking place. It isn’t just a random door on a floor above a barber shop. A hotel pays a receptionist to take your money. It doesn’t ask you to get a card machine out the cupboard, plug it in, put in the amount you want to pay then hold your card against it. And when that doesn’t work the receptionist is unlikely to ask you to phone a random number and make an international bank transfer, and when that doesn’t work she’s unlikely to tell you to hide the cash In a cupboard and say she’ll collect it later. And hotel rooms give you your own bathroom, which is unlikely to contain enough hair in the shower trap to allow you to create a massive wig and become a Tina Turner tribute act.
But apart from that it’s perfect. You’ll also be glad to know that international bedroom borders are still being respected.
