It's been a while since I've hit the road - I was very ill (Stills Disease), in hospital for quite a while and then off my bike for a year , but I was one of the lucky ones and have made almost a full recovery- or at least enough to get back on Thelma and take off once more- this time destination Mongolia.
12,000 miles across Europe, the 'Stans and Russia to Outer Mongolia.
Having gone quite quickly across Europe to make the ferry out of Odessa, I am now relaxing by the coast in Georgia.
What can I say? The wine is good (a bit of trial and error at first), the beer is very good and the people are very friendly.
I have had my friend April with me - US diplomat who I stayed with in Rio, it's good to be able to return the hospitality favour and host her on an episode of bike travel in Georgia and Armenia.
She has loved it, even the mechanical issues and the coasting towards the border on petrol fumes when we got that crucial travel formula slightly wrong -you know the one- Fuel/Local Currency/Distance to Border.
It was a hectic five days
Five days without running water let alone electricity and internet and here is why...
I collected my Kazakh visa in Baku, Azerbaijan then made a dash for the ferry and my luck was in - straight onto it - the only other European had been waiting eight days...
I waved goodbye to Leon and his fridge, heading eastwards through Bukara and Samarkand- both as stunning as all the pictures and text suggest.
I manged to arrive in Tashkent 12 hours before Ann's flight was due from London which I thought was pretty good timing having crossed one and a half continents to get here. Ann (or Annie as she is also known) is due to travel with me until Mongolia - or until she gets tired of my singing on the bike.
A traumatic start to Annie's journey with me and here is how it unfolded-
Day One - only 30 mins later leaving the hotel than planned - the reception machine bounced back Annie's husband's credit card (nice gesture Terry, but we ended up having to pay cash).
Korjand to Dushanbe
Annie had thought things couldn't get much worse until she woke up the next morning and I issued her with a thermal balaclava, nearly losing one pillion rider to hypothermia in Armenia I don't want to risk another one.
I'd woken feeling better though weak and felt able to move on - not in any mood to hang around mad man's hotel if we could help it.
IN Dushanbe (Tajikistan capital) for several days as we waited for our visa extensions- a gentle lulling back to the comforts of civilisation such as running water, fridges with chilled drinks and the ultimate gastronomic high of a Lebanese restaurant serving felafel and hummus. Vegetarian food is not easy to find here and my excitement at spotting veggie kebabs at a open air restaurant was somewhat tempered when I also spotted the lumps of mutton fat threaded onto the skewers.
We had heard that the route we were taking would be challenging and they weren't wrong. First it was incredibly hot as we followed the river with 1000 metre cliffs on either side and no greenery anywhere except the very occasional oasis village.
The track deteriorated and was very tricky to ride with dried river beds to cross, some still with rivers to cross - I reminded Annie of the key point when crossing a river - keep your mouth shut as sometimes the water has a nasty habit of flying up and straight into the helmet.
We had reunions and rough riding along the Afghan border, as we encountered other travellers we'd previously met and tackled tracks that were steep and narrow and which were covered in sandy gravel. Our loose front indicator went flying off along one precipitous track, I had to retrace our route to find it. Not that indicators are any use out here as they are never used, but I know that in Kazakhstan and Russia, the police are very keen to pull foreign motorists over on the slightest pretext and a missing indicator will be a big bribe.
We had a final couple of days in Tajikistan staying at the remote town of Murghab - a very bleak place where there is nothing green and all the food has to be imported as nothing grows. It was a sociable time as first we saw Al and Dave from the 'Stan Clan, my Horizons bike riders' group- they are on a whirlwind ride through to Vladivostock (Pacific coast) via Mongolia and have just six weeks left to get there- which is a lot of hard riding.
Horseriding for a day though the world's largest walnut forest on horses that had wooden saddles, not the most comfortable of rides with my notoriously bony backside.
Riding some of the best roads I have been on - steep mountain tracks, challenging enough to be enjoyable and high enough to experience eagles swooping in at 3000 metres for a closer look at the bike
Tobi and Claus catching us up having ridden from Germany to Kyrgyrstan in nine days! just the thought of it is enough to make my backside go numb again.
A week of camping out at the lake has spoiled us- beautiful sandy beaches, clear turquoise water with no-one and not even any buildings in sight. We collected driftwood for camp fires at night, I must admit we were also spoilt as Leon and his trusty van and sidekick Iwan were with us and so we had lots of freshwater available from the gerry cans in the van and had done a lot of food shopping in preparation for camping.
It was hard but we finally made the break after several fantastic weeks. We followed a really picturesque valley road heading west away from Bishkek and with a couple of snow-covered 3000m mountain passes as a reminder of how cold we have been at times, It should be much flatter conditions from now on. A final lone Golden eagle flew over as we approached the border to Kazakhstan, but here we ran into a problem, the soldier wouldn't let us pass and announced Kazakhstan was closed.
One ride out with the local bike club and my clean sheet with the Kazakh police is wiped out as we all got pulled over en masse. Not really surprising as some of them were riding extremely fast. I know you are going to want to know what bikes were out with us - ummmm, not sure except the R1, the Africa Twin and a very fast BMW.
Luckily the police were not interested in me when they realised I was a foreigner.
We were ready to leave Almaty - having been helped a lot by Den and his bike workshop (www.2wheels.kz) as well as Fedor giving a hand with the front tyre - thanks guys.
Two battered looking cars pulled up at the hostel, Mongol Rally competitors, the onlookers who were watching in fascination as I serviced Thelma looked up and asked me about the cars, they were frankly astounded to hear that the cars were taking part in a race -
We are now about 100kms from the Russian border- can't be too precise as we are off our mapped universe so it is a bit of guesswork from here on in. Not having northern Kazakhstan didn't seem such an issue when we looked at our map back in England.
We had heard some horror stories about the Kazakh/Russian border, mostly from Mongol Rally competitors, who were giving dark warnings about seven hours spent just waiting in line etc. But in the event our fears were groundless, there was no queue as we crossed over accompanied by a Mongol Rally team from Sweden, we had plenty of food and water with us, however it took just two hours and we were done, into Russia, land of plentiful, cheap fuel (38 pence a litre), good roads and not bad food (so far).
Utterly exhausted after an almost non-stop ride from Almaty (southern Kazakhstan) that has taken us two weeks. Feeling exhilarated to have reached Mongolia after three and a half months and even better to have met up with old friends whom I haven't seen for seven years as we have always been on bike travels at opposite ends of the world - funny to meet up with them here in Mongolia.
Well it's been several days of catching up on my sleep, having long conversations with the other travellers here (at one point there were five bikes at the hostel) and trying to eat as much Black Forest Gateau as possible before I leave the luxuries and civilisation of the city.