UK - Asia 2002 / 2003

"How on earth am I going to write India up?" A question I asked Georgie about a hundred times in the 5 weeks we were there. She struck lucky, getting nice positive experiences in Nepal and Pakistan to describe, but how should I handle our voyage through a living hell? I bet a number of readers have stiffened at this point, having “visited and loved the country, although some parts were difficult”.

My real regret with buying the Enfield is the state of exhaustion and pain it would leave me in each evening. One of the victims of this was my diary. Since Nepal, the entries were few and far between, to the extent that unfortunately I gave up early in Pakistan. So the sources of this newsletter are memory (oh dear) and photos.

All of the travellers we had met said that Iran was a wonderfully hospitable country, with fabulous culture and sights. It sounded like a hotter version of Turkey, with cheap petrol but with just one social minefield; a strict female dress code. Of course our expectations were wide of the mark again; Iran is much feistier, challenging and tiring than we imagined.

Leaving Iran marked the ‘end of the unknown’ for our trip; but not the ‘end of the unfamiliar’. Spending a year and half in Asia had changed us and allowed time for things to change back in Europe. So this chapter is unusual in that we deliberately didn’t write it on the road; in fact it wasn’t completed until almost a year later. Before and during the trip we had talked to many travellers and heard about the problems that they had readjusting to normal life after their travels. Many people couldn’t settle into the hum-drum life at home and would return to the road again.

We have 2 pieces of very good news we’d like to tell you all. We have 2 pieces of very good news we’d like to tell you all.

The most important is that Georgie is now pregnant – the baby has already been exposed to the throb of a BMW engine – got to get that training in early!! The baby is due in February 2006 – we’re both very excited, but scared - this big adventure is more difficult to back out of than the last!

We promised the people of Asia that we would do the trip, and then go home and have babies. We have delivered on that promise, or at least Georgie has delivered. All is well with us, Georgie is smiling after the ordeal and the baby is well.

Simon and Oscar