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.