Iran

Since the start of this trip I was looking forward to Iran the most due to amazing reports from previous travellers here. I have to be honest though because I had such high expectations from this country I think it hindered my experience somewhat. It has been the countries I knew nothing about that gave me the most surprise and the most enjoyment. I loved my time in Iran don’t get me wrong but I couldn’t help feeling that because it is a country that is tainted with a certain image that positive stories are somewhat inflated to compensate for that image. Just my honest opinion.

I started to realise the extent of this image the closer I got towards Iran. Turkish people would tell me I would get my hands cut off, or my personal favourite that I would get circumcised. I got warnings from back home telling me to be careful in Iran. I have had no other warnings for any other country on this trip. I found it funny that I was getting warnings in a place I felt completely safe while watching the riots happen in my own country.

Iran

The people of Iran are amazing, I felt like a king while in their country and have never experienced such hospitality.

Arriving late into the city of Tabriz I wondered around trying to find a park I could camp in. I was told of a few parks that camping was allowed. Finally I found the park and was quickly kicked out by the security guy, I’m still not sure why. After being directed to a 5 star hotel by the a few locals I went in to ask for a cheap hotel. The women behind the desk gave me a map and off I went to find a hotel. I wasn’t present more than one hour in the city before an Iranian came up to me and asked if I needed a place to stay. He first took me out for dinner and took me to his friends house and then back to his house. I learnt of the struggles he and his family had faced with life in Iran and with all the problems he was the most positive person I have ever met. He spent the next day with me helping me to cross off my to do list. He gave up his time, his money, his food and his house to a smelly stranger in the streets for no other reason than to help me.

Sometimes in Iran it can get a little too much with everyone being so friendly and you try and get away but eventually it will catch up with you. After ignoring an invitation while cycling a local guy got on his motorbike and chased us down, he pulled us over simply to give us a melon and quickly rode on back to his shop. Ten minutes later  he must have thought, “shit! I wasn’t friendly enough” and chased us down again to offer us a place to sleep for the night.

Sometimes you would experience a panic in an Iranian. While having a small break in the middle of nowhere a bus driver slowed down stopped opposite us and his head popped up with a bottle of water. Having plenty of water we refused, he looked around the bus looking for something to give us. He head disappeared again and he re-appeared with fresh sweetcorn, we had to laugh.

Pulled over by the police – “Do you want a cup of tea”

Welcome to Iran.

Every country has its own rules and different meanings and it’s always interesting to see what they are. Due to language barriers you often resort to hand signals to communicate. Since a common signal in the West is the thumbs up it’s natural to do this without thinking too much. One problem, a thumbs up in Iran means f*uck you. Sometimes you notice doing it but sometimes you don’t. If you get invited into a house you can predict that you will get food. The melon comes out.. mmm it’s good, f*uck you! You will then get chai most likely.. mmm chai good, f*uck you! Next up dinner… mmm really good, a double f*uck you! Ahh travelling.

On drunken night on non-alcoholic beer I planned to strap a bear called Wilson (see below) to my bike and help him escape the evil prison he was captured in. The plan was to strap him to the back of the bike and drop him somewhere in China. It seemed like a good idea at the time but the morning after after recovering from my fake hangover we decided to leave him in his prison in Mashhad.

While talking to a local in Mashhad he said something that has stuck with me throughout this trip and will do the rest of my life, I’ll leave you with what he had to say.

Everyone in the West thinks we are all terrorists and want to destroy the world. No one is like that in Iran, we are all just human beings the same as everyone else. It makes me sad that everyone thinks this of Iranian people.

Turkey – part 1

Europe was a walk in park compared to Turkey but with new challenges comes great rewards. Turkey will always have a place in my heart for my time spent there and along with my time in Rennes it remains my favourite country to date for one simple reason – the people.

After 5,000km on the road and passing through 9 countries already Turkey opened up a new level of pleasure, euphoria and surpassed my previous thoughts that people are good people.

Example:

While trying to sleep at the back of a café I experienced one strangest nights of my life so far. With my tent all set up and ready for bed I heard sniffing around my tent, the sniffing doubled, then tripled – then the barking started and I was trapped in my tent surrounded by about 6 or 7 dogs. It was more of a pain in the ass as I was trying to sleep. 15 mins past and the stupid mutts were still barking. Although now I had a serious problem, I really needed the toilet. My options were to get out of the tent and go Chuck Norris on their asses, stay in my tent and wait or use some sort of Scrapheap Challenge mentality and try and concoct some sort of device out of the contains in my tent to relive myself. I went for option 2 and waited. Thankfully dogs being stupid one of them got distracted and ran off barking in the other way and the rest followed I was free and ran to the toilet. Job done.

Around 12am I was in the twilight zone of sleep when I was woken up by a shaking of my tent to be greeted by around 6-7 young lads all standing their looking at my bike and my tent.

“Do you speak English?”

I replied “Yeah”

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get some sleep, what do you want?”

Still half asleep in the middle of nowhere behind the café, no one could see me and I was now facing 6-7 young lads in their 20s, my thoughts turned to concern. I was helpless, they could quite easily have taken anything they wanted, in other words I was f*cked.

“Pack up your tent, you’re coming with me!”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not safe you have to come with me, it’s not safe!”

Half asleep I tried to review my options I could either go with them and see what happened and just hope for the best or I could stay where I was knowing that they knew my location which meant I was likely to get no sleep or I could find somewhere else to sleep in the middle of the night, this option presents problems though as how I would get rid of these young lads.

I picked option 1 and went with the flow. If anything happened then it would happen, luck of the draw really, I was in the wrong place at the right time and it could happen to anyone anywhere.

I agreed to go with them and they all rushed to pack up my tent and gear. Once my gear was in the car I was told to get into the car while one of the lads rode my bike to his house. This was something I simply refused to do as my tired brain came to the conclusion that the lad would ride off with my bike, I would be driven a few miles away maybe beaten and pushed out of the car with nothing. If I could keep my bike at least I could get to the next town to tell someone about what happened.

Finally I was allowed to ride my bike but the young lad tried to get on it with me.  After some miscommunication I finally got my point across that I wasn’t going to ride him to wherever we where going.

I set off in the pitch black with no lights with all my gear in a car of 5 young lads with another guy running beside me. Thankfully after a short 10 min ride we ended up into what he said was his house.

All my gear was then taken out of the car and the young chap that could speak English said:

“You must be very tired, please come inside my house and get some rest”

He showed me around and gave me the tour,

“Here is the shower if you need to wash, here is the kitchen if you are hungry, please help yourself to as much food as you wish”

I was taken to my room and he got out some fresh blankets while all the other lads watched me and spoke to each other all smiling. Finally he ordered the young lads out and asked me what time I wanted waking up so he could prepare breakfast for me.

Things could have been a lot worse but during this trip I have had similar incidences, which as a solo traveller I have to be cautious about, it’s a defence mechanism that we all have. Thankfully nothing bad has happened during this trip and it has been completely overwhelming by the friendliness of people in every country I go to.

**note.. Sorry I’m very backdated with my blog posts, I’m currently in Tajikistan and have a lot of things to write about. Hopefully I should be able to get some more posts up in the next few days before I hit the Pamir Highway.

I have been away from home now for just over 2 months and I have been on the road now for 6.5 weeks of that time. I would like to share my first thoughts on life on a road. Although this is a small time in terms of bicycle touring I’m planning on writing this post every 2 months that I’m on the road. What follows is my thoughts on life on the road mixed with stories of my time on the road.

I have just finished Europe after 5,000km and now heading further East.

Life on the road can be empowering.

Now that I’ve reduced my life to living out of 4 bags life is pretty simple. I’ve also noticed though that although my daily routine is simple it is also the simplest of things that can completely change my day for the better or the worst.

Being held back by the humidity of the Black Forest I spent all day trying to cycle up the hills and made a total distance of 25 miles all day. I stopped off in a restaurant thinking that I just needed some a kebab and pizza so I rested at the first one I saw. I took this chance to hydrate myself after losing an enormous amount of water through sweat. I went into the restaurant and placed my order, the guy behind the counter, a Turkish fella looked at me with big eyes and disbelief. I just assumed that I stunk and looked like a tramp no doubt, I didn’t think much of it. My food came and he was still looking at me in disbelief, firing glances at me and Mariee. I finished my food and went to return my plate when he started speaking to me,

“Where are you from?”, “Liverpool, England” I replied.

“You came on bicycle”? Yeah heading to New Zealand”

“New Zealand!!!”

He turned to his friend and told him in Turkish he replied with a srug, he wasn’t that arsed. I asked to fill up my water bottles, he declined and gave me a big bottle of water instead. He came outside and looked at Mariee again with his eyes even wider with a smile and nodding up and down in approval. He looked at me and said,

“Respect”

That was it, I felt as though I’d had a weeks rest, completely hydrated with the best food in the world and plenty of it. In 3 hours of riding I’d managed to knock off another 40 miles and made it to my destination which I thought I wouldn’t reach until the day after. Mariee felt so light like she didn’t have panniers on. I’ve come to learn that unexpected motivation can be powerful and can completely change your day. 

Life on the road can be extremely varied.

This is without doubt my favourite part of life on the road. You never know what’s going to happen in the space of 10 mins. In Hungary while riding through some deep gravel, I came off Mariee and landed pretty funny on my hand to the amusement of the locals who were laughing. About 15 mins later I was lying on a secluded beach on the Danube river with only about 5 locals present. I had asked at the bar if there was a place to camp they let me camp for free on the banks. Life is random. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to the Danube as I was leaving the day after looking for a more direct route to Istanbul. I said goodbye with a quick midnight skinny-dip under the stars, amazing.

After saying goodbye to the Danube in Harta I had planned for a big day to try and get to Serbia. The day started well and I’d managed to get rid of all my Hungarian money by stocking up on the 3 C’s, coffee, coke, cookies. I had about a 70 mile cycle to do on the backroads but it I calculated that I should be in Serbia by 5pm. So off I went, after battling a head wind all day I made it to the border crossing after 72 miles of cycling and pretty exhausted. At the border crossing the women looked at my passport and walked over to the other border crossing officials. In broken English I was told that I wasn’t allowed to cross because I was from the UK. I was confused, tired and I just couldn’t work out why. Eventually we understood each other; that border crossing was for Hungary – Serbian nationals only. Totally gutted! I’d gone to the wrong one, I had to cycle back! After 72 miles of cycling my heart sank but there was nothing I could do, I had to cycle to the next border crossing which I was told I would be allowed through. As I started to make my way to the other crossing which was about another 25 miles away I was pulled over by a police car who demanded my passport. He took it and started looking at every page and every angle, I guess making sure it was real. He took it and then on his walky talky started talking. I could only wait and see what would happen. I waited for about 20 mins while he was on the phone constantly flicking through my passport. I was getting more and more annoyed as the sun was falling and I had another 20 odd miles to cycle to get back on track and I needed to find a place to stay as I wasn’t going to attempt to cross an international border at night with no money and heading straight into a city. Finally he got off his phone and asked me where I was going, I told him the actual border crossing which I was supposed to go in the first place. Right answer, he seemed to understand in his broken English. He gave me my passport back and I set off again only to be shouted at to stay. What now! I had been waiting for about 25 mins and just wanting to get back on track and rest. He was waiting for a phone call, after a quick call with someone I was allowed to go and they smiled and said their goodbyes.

Although frustrated at having been delayed they were only doing their job. After a bad afternoon and tired legs I got back on track and again the randomness of the life of the road showed its head once again. With no money I arrived at a hotel too late for food the people at the hotel insisted that I had to eat something and phoned a pizza for me to eat which they converted some of my euros for me in order to pay.

You have good days and bad days.

I got organised and woke up at 6am and headed a couple of miles to the McDonalds that I noticed the day before to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi. I name my destination and find a campsite there on the internet. I add the directions to you GPS and off I set. Knowing where I’ll sleep at night brings in some comfort on some days. So I set off early for a 80 mile cycle fully stocked on food and water knowing that I’ll be on a cycle path all day with no hills and the sun is shining. I start to make progress but 80 miles is a tiring day for anyone. Soon enough I arrive at my destination just before sunset, time to find the campsite. I see a sign for camping and I’m looking forward to a shower and a rest and hopefully a chat with come other cyclists hopefully doing crazy distances. I follow the sign for a couple of miles and nothing, no more signs or anything. I stop to ask and no one speaks any English or can understand my gestures. I continue to ask around and are told that the nearest campsite is another 15km from here in the opposite direction that I want to go. Stranded in a city before sunset and refusing to pay for a hotel I have to find somewhere to wild camp in the city. I end up in a cementry which has some woods just by the side. I wait until the last people leave and just lay my sleeping mat out and sleeping bag hoping that the rain doesn’t come. What should have been a straight forward day now turns into an all nighter as I can’t sleep as there’s too many strange noises in the forest and what sound like footsteps. I lay awake in the forest unable to sleep no doubt fuelled by the days cycling and all the endorphins pumping through the body. What little rest I did get that night was interrupted by a slug type thing who decided that its next meal would be my scalp, trying to find this thing through my think knotted hair was quite a challenge but eventually I found it and flicked it away.

Life on the road is everything I thought it would be and more.

Rewarding, frustrating, liberating, tiring and so much more I highly recommend it.

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With the heat increasing and Bulgaria being the most hilly country yet I have cycled through I have often found my mind drifting into fantasies, something which I can not control. I get lost in these fantasies hoping that every corner I turn they might come true. Here’s an example of one.

I’m cycling down a long and distant road that has no end, the sun is melting the road and I’m dripping with sweat. As I move slowly down the road I see something, a building a some kind. Hopefully it will be a shop which I could fill my water bottles in.

“Hello Mr Hughes we have been expecting you.”

“Your room is ready.”

“What room?” I ask

“Your special room that we have arranged for you, please make yourself comfortable your food is nearly ready.”

“Food?”

“Yes sir, for starters you will be having 2 roast dinners, for the main course you will be having 4 roast dinners and for desert you will be having 4 cheesecakes, all free of course. Please rest your legs in your jacuzzi while the chef finishes up.”

As I enter the jacuzzi a projector comes out of the wall and a huge screen follows and starts playing George Carlin live.

“Ahh your food is ready, please relax you can eat it in the jacuzzi.”

“We have also spoken to the governments of the countries you plan to vist and have worked out a system in which we can make the rest of the trip flat for you without losing any of the scenery. A team a highly trained individuals are working around the clock to change the landscape so that it is a very high quality road with no bumps whatsoever.”

“Ahh the masseuse is here, please finish your food and watch the rest the stand up comedy first.”

“Thanks.”

“Sir, I have just got off the phone with the military and they have finished a new chemical spray for you. One tiny bit of this spray will kill all mosquitos and flies within 50 miles from you. They have also confirmed that all visas have been added to your passport and you can stay as long as you like in each country with 100% guarantee of entry for each one.”

“Why thank you”

“We have also had a special team of engineers working to turn one of your front panniers into a refrigerator. They are using a special material that makes it super lightweight yet doesn’t comprise its insulation ability. They have made it possible to work off your dynamo hub so as you ride you are keeping everything cold. You can carry as much ice cream as you want with you and it will never melt.”

“We have also installed an external fan so when camping this fan with act as a AC for your tent. Simply keep your Reecharge powered up and connect it up and you should have AC in your tent all night long”

If Carlsberg made adventure cycling tours.

My last blog post I wrote while in the Black Forest, since then I cycled down to Donaueschingen to meet my travel companion the Danube River. I have followed the river all the way to Slovakia which I’ll follow until Bulgaria and then leave for Turkey.

The Danube has been nothing but a treat. It is mostly flat and well sign posted which is a good thing since I took no map and just assumed that I would find my way. This has worked out pretty well, however, I have been lost a couple of times but that was mainly due to me missing signs and not concentrating.

The ride through Germany was comfortable and relaxing. Heading into Austria was equally comfortable but much more scenic. It started as soon as you crossed the Germany/Austria border. It was like something from a Disney film, I had flocks of birds weaving in and out around my bike along with butterflies riding along with me all while surrounded by green forests and of course the trusty Danube. I half expected people to come out of their homes and start signing to aid my Disney fantasy. The cycle pathway from Passau to Wein was simply stunning and I now know why most people start their cycle trip from Passau.

It was also in Austria that I experienced my first encounter of random friendliness. I was cycling along the river and was going to overtake a local cyclist who was trying to see over a huge box he had in front of him. He started chatting to me and asked where I was going etc. He told me that he was a local fisherman and was going to feed the fish. When his place of work came up he told me that he had family about 60km from there, I thought nothing of it and said it’s nice to have family close by, we then said our goodbyes.

10 minutes later I noticed a cyclist come pretty fast behind me so I moved over, it was the fisherman. He told me that he had phoned his mother and it was ok for me to go and say with her for the night, she would feed me and let me rest etc. He then went out of his way to create mini maps for me including his mothers house address and exactly how to get there. I have read a few travel blogs and I know that this happens quite often but it’s one thing knowing something and another experiencing it. I was taken back by it, I don’t even think that he would have been there. I kept asking myself would I send a random cyclist who stinks and I’ve spoken to for 5 mins to my mothers? Unfortunately his mother lived too close for the distance I wanted to cover that day so I had to thank him but explain that I wanted to cover double the distance. This is something I now regret as it would have been something different to break up my trip.

I’ve also noticed an increasing trust in people the further I travel, so much so that I haven’t yet locked Mariee (my bike), I just don’t feel any threat. Although I feel this trust I have to admit that I did take advantage of it by sneaking out of a camp site in the wee hours of the morning without paying, it was a huge campsite with loads of motorhomes so they weren’t struggling for business and I’m on a budget.

My tent was also put through it paces and failed unfortunately. We had a freak storm about 8am in Austria with the winds getting too much for my tent and it uprooted the whole thing while I was in it and snapped a pole while ripping a hole in the tent. I was rollin’ around in the tent while the wind continued to blow me away. Eventually there was a break in the wind and I managed to gather everything that had blown away, great start to the morning. Although this was one of the things that makes you want to go back to bed I rode that wind until I hit Linz

With Western Europe out of the way I’m heading to places unknown to me. I don’t know a lot about the countries I’m about to visit but it’s exciting and leaving Austria and entering Slovakia you notice the cultural change. I’m really looking forward to leaving Europe and heading further East. Experienced tourers say Europe is a training ground for the rest of the world and I think I’m about a couple of weeks away from taking on the East.

I once heard that a friend of a friend had cycled to Prague and it hit me that this was the answer I was looking for. I went back to University in order to save money for further travels, which I had a done previously with the aim of getting a degree and doing something different but not the typical backpacking trips I had done previously.

With the seed now set in place I started to research long distance cycling trips and found a whole new way of seeing the world. So it was done, I would cycle from Liverpool To Tanzania for READ International. Of course this never happened I think the fear prevented this from ever taking place but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. A couple of months later I decided to start reading books on the topic and quickly polished off ‘Moods Of Future Joys / Part 1: Riding Into Africa’ and ‘Thunder And Sunshine / Part 2: Riding Home’. That was it; I would start my cycle trip but I wanted to go around the world not just to Tanzania.

The months passed by and my confidence grew with what I was doing. With about 3 years in order to prepare I find it funny that upon the day of my departure the furthest I had ever cycled was 20 miles, I had no experience of riding with traffic and extremely basic bike maintenance experience. Still I didn’t consider these problems in any aspect just a little inexperience like when I applied to study a degree course which I couldn’t spell (mild dyslexia) at the time, yet after 4 years I received an honours degree.

I built a website and told everyone. My girlfriend flew to South America while I tried to cycle across the planet. I couldn’t back out. I sold pretty much everything I own, what do I need a lot of possessions for anyway? I have talked about this elsewhere. I started getting kit together and started the frustrating experience of getting sponsors. I soon learnt one of the most important lessons that most people do not share the same vision as your trip. This knocked me down into a more realistic frame of mind and I’m glad that I went through that experience. My website changed as a result and the outlook on my trip had also changed. I no longer saw it as an expedition I just saw it as another means to travel the world. I think the planning and preparation that went into this (practically nothing) are indications of this.

They say the first day is the hardest day, however, I didn’t think this was the case. The months and weeks leaving up to the departure date were easily the hardest. I found myself thinking about the worst and yet there was nothing I could do except thinking about it. The panic in trying to get everything ready in time, which I realised in the midst of everything that I didn’t actually have to do that much. My first life lesson of the trip was learnt – I worry too much.

As I said goodbye to family and friends from my house I didn’t feel nervous or anything, I felt ready. After years of thinking about it, worrying about it, I was finally doing it. I felt a huge weight was lifted off my mind as I started to pedal ever closer to New Zealand.

With 20 miles cycling as my current pathetic record, my first day would smash this. I decided to try and cycle 80 miles on my first day with a fully loaded bike and absolutely no training at all. I kept saying to myself ‘If I can complete my first day in one piece then I can complete the rest of the trip’. With my GPS guiding me through all the lovely cycle routes through the North West of the UK and avoiding yet another fear of mine (cycling through traffic) I quickly broke my current cycle record in no time at all. Maybe things were going a little too perfect, which is why my GPS track route ran out about 40 miles into my route. I had no map, I had to make up my route as I go along, something I have become used to now. What was supposed to be an 80-mile cycle on my first day turned into a 105-mile cycle. I didn’t make my destination of course and ended up sleeping under some bushes in a local park in Buxton. Yet it filled me with confidence. I arrived at midday to my friend’s house having completed a 105-mile cycle over of course of 1.5 days with no training and with no road cycling experience. I was ready to cycle to New Zealand.

The rest of the way down England I was staying with friends all the way down until Dover to say my goodbyes to people that couldn’t make it up to Liverpool. From meals at Hooters to staying with Dan Martin who is training for a global triathlon my cycle down England was a pleasant one.

Hooters

I envisioned myself leaving my home with tears in my eyes and a lot of mixed emotions but it wasn’t like that until I was on the A2 heading to Dover. As soon as I saw the English Channel I burst out crying not because I was saying goodbye to the UK but because I had just cycled from Liverpool to Dover. I had done it and I was so proud of myself for this very short distance.

France

I heard a few accounts of people becoming lost once they arrive in Calais, thankfully due to the fact that a couple of years previous I had hitchhiked from the UK to Prague I knew Calais quite well and knew where I was going. Although I was now going completely off route from New Zealand I had to make my way down to Rennes to stay with a friend. I took to cycling on the other side of the road pretty well and followed the yellow brick road all the way down to Le Treport were I got the train down to Rennes.

My time in Rennes was blissful. I had in my head that I would stay for 3 days pick up my parcel and head off East to New Zealand no problem. However, things didn’t work out that way- 5am walks down by the canal and cycling through the city at similar times made me seriously question whether or not I actually wanted to continue with this trip. 3 days off turned into 1.5 weeks off and I would have been a lot longer if I felt that I wasn’t outstaying my welcome with the other housemates my friend was staying with. For the first time in many months I was actually happy and I spent a long time trying to justify why I wanted to continue with this trip. I did expect this sort of questioning at some point during this trip but I didn’t expect so soon. Of course logic kicked in and I knew that I had to leave due to people sponsoring me to do a job and my girlfriend that I had to meet in New Zealand.

Leaving Rennes was one of the hardest things I ever had to do though, I didn’t think it would be so hard and I was unprepared. After what seemed like a couple of years standing on a street corner trying to say goodbye I finally left my friend and headed East. It wasn’t until I was alone again that the floodgates opened. I didn’t want to leave but I knew that I had to; I guess all the emotion of the whole trip came rushing out all at once along with saying goodbye to a friend who I feel our time together had created a new meaning in our friendship.

I set off East again and crossed width of France in 6 days but my head still wasn’t right. I felt I’d lost all reason for doing this trip and I was just doing it because I’d backed myself into a corner and wasn’t brave enough to say ‘OK, sorry guys but I don’t want to do this anymore’, I felt trapped. The time across France was very confusing for me, I just wanted to go back to Rennes and pick up that smile I was using during my stay. I continued with my trip however and just less than two weeks later I’m starting to get my head back together and get back into this trip.

After leaving France I made yet another detour from my actually plan and headed to Baden-Baden in the Black Forest in Germany to stay with a old friend I once meet in India while trekking the Himalayas. Baden-Baden is a sexy lazy town, very designer and slow paced and right at the top of the Black Forest so it attracts different types of tourists.

So here I am as of writing in the Black Forest heading down to Donaueschingen to try and find the start of the Danube River, which will take me all the way to the Black Sea. So far I’ve smashed my cycling record and covered over 2000km so far.

I would also like to thank everyone for their support during the start of this trip.

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Moleskine product review.

Moleskine have a respected reputation for their notebooks and it’s this reputation that make them a favourite for travellers wanting to record their thoughts while away. I was lucky enough to be supplied with 3 different types of notebooks from Moleskine to keep a journal of my trip and keep a record of everything such as important numbers, contact info etc. This blog post will look at the notebooks in depth so you can judge for yourself why they have such a good reputation.

As you would expect with a journal you would get the same setup in a lot of them but Moleskine goes that extra step and I’ve found the notebook to be useful in many ways other than recording my thoughts.

The first page is simply incase you lose your notebook. Out of all the things you take travelling with you the notebook will be of no use to anyone who steals it but it will be one of your prized possessions. A nice feature is the reward part giving anyone who finds it more of an incentive to return it to you.

The notebook continues with more important information such as your family doctor info, your visa information, health insurance, travel insurance, emergency contact info etc.

Moleskine notebook review

This is following by an outline of your itinerary for your trip allowing your to make notes complete with dates etc.

Moleskine notebook review

The best part of the notebook for me is this section, a list of international holidays for the year for 44 countries.  This could be a time saver when applying your visas or planning your trip. Take note of the times of holidays in countries you are in.

Moleskine notebook review

Another handy feature is the map of the world with times zones. Perfect for checking what time it is when calling home.

Moleskine notebook review

More useful information is apart of the notebook before the actual journal starts. This is a distance section showing the distance from city to city, handy if you want to check how far you have left or travel time which you can plan accordingly to.

Moleskine notebook review

Next up is dialling codes, internet and plate codes of countries. Useful again if trying to ring embassies in the next country on your trip or or family and friends trying to ring you.

Moleskine notebook review

What follows next is the standard measurement conversation chart followed by the actual start of the journal. Each day of the week is on the left of the page and the right is blank for extra notes.

Moleskine notebook review

The final part of the notebook is a handy address feature. You can keep your friends & family important contact info there and also useful for adding future contacts from sits like Couchsurfing.

Moleskine journal review

The notebooks are well built and will last for quite a long time. I look forward to using them on my journey to record my trip. I’ll be using them as a personal journey and I’ll be using the other plain notebooks to plan future blog posts and my free-books.

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Product review: Joby Gorillapod – SLR ZOOM and ballhead

Joby – Makers of Gorillapod, Gorillatorch and Gorillamobile

I’m very happy to provide a product review for one of my sponsors for my cycling adventure –  Joby. Joby have supplied me with an awesome Gorillapod – SLR ZOOM.

Delivery:

Delivery was very fast and took just 4 days all the way from San Francisco to the Wirral, UK. It was delivered via Fed Express and was secured so that no damage would occur during shipment.

Why the SLR ZOOM?

Well, for the trip i’m doing I wanted something lightweight, the SLR ZOOM comes in at 241g (8.5oz). I wanted something small – 25 x 6 x 6cm (9.8 x 2.4 x 2.4″) and also something that could support my Canon 7D (SLR ZOOM holds up to 3kg!) and have flexibility that I can produce interesting camera angles. One of my concerns was due to the flexibility of the SLR ZOOM I was a tad worried about getting my photos off balance. However the SLR ZOOM comes with a nice bubble level feature which allows you to correctly align your camera for the perfect shot. This used with the Canon 7D’s Dual-Axis Electronic Level means that it would be pretty hard to take photos mis-aligned.

The SLR ZOOM gives me everything I was looking for as a tripod to cycle to New Zealand with and makes it a pretty decent part of my equipment kit list.

What is the strength and flexibility like?

A review wouldn’t be complete without my own tests. I was using my Canon 7D along with a Canon 50mm 1.4mm lens. Although it’s not the heaviest lens in the world, it is all I have so far to test with.

My first test was looking at the strength of the SLR ZOOM to be able to support the Canon 7D while set up like a normal tripod.

I first set up the tripod so that the Canon 7D was tipped to the side. I found that after adjusting the legs of the SLR ZOOM I was able to find a comfortable in which the 7D was perfectly steady.

Another test in this position showed again the camera was perfectly steady.

Now for the interesting part. What can I attach it to? In this test the SLR ZOOM was wrapped around my banister. There was a 4 foot drop onto hard wooden floors if it didn’t hold the camera. I was quite nervous doing this test as if it went wrong there goes my camera. I wrapped the tripod legs around the banister and after some adjusting and playing around until it got to the point where I felt safe I let go.

I was pretty happy that the camera stayed in the postion I put it in! As you can see from the image the Joby did a fantastic job of keeping my camera in the required position.

Another test shot this time with a new position for the camera. Again, after some trail and error I finally wrapped the legs of the tripod in a secure enough position to support the camera body and the lens.

Another image showing just how well it supports my Canon 7D.

Overall thoughts? Pleasantly surprised at the strength of the SLR ZOOM. I felt comfortable taking my heads off and allowing the tripod to do its job.

Accessories

The SLR ZOOM has some pretty nice accessories as well. These can be seen below and are called spike feet.

You can assemble the spike feet onto the legs of your SLR ZOOM and you get a pretty funky looking camera setup, like below.

What’s great about the spike feet is that they are perfect for macro photography and can add more stability to your camera if on the right surface such as grass etc.

I’m pretty excited about using the SLR-ZOOM and what it can do while on the road. Stay tuned for future updates of this product while on the road.

For more information about the SLR ZOOM and other products that Joby offers such as: GorrillaPod, GorrillaMobile  and GorrillaTouch you can visit the Joby website.

How to make a difference for only £2

With time feeling like it’s speeding up and with only about 4-5 months to go until I leave to cycle around the world, I had to get started on a big part of this trip; raising £10,000 for Action Aid. I love the work of Action Aid and also use their amazing child sponsorship program. Featured below is the girl I am sponsoring. She is called Malai Bo and is from Cambodia. I pay only about 50p a day with this program and it allows Malai Bo to get an education and also helps her small village in Cambodia. I receive regular updates from Malai Bo and her life.



It was because of this program that I wanted to help Action Aid further. So, my goal is to raise £10,000 during my cycling adventure. £10,000 can change people’s lives and is also a realistic target;

• £10,000 could provide a borehole for two schools, providing a clean and safe water supply in Malawi.

• £10,000 would pay for a woman’s empowerment programme in Nepal, which focuses on domestic violence, community support mechanism, awareness of anti-trafficking and seeking alternative income to stop trafficking of children.

While this target is realistic I have to be realistic myself about how I would complete something like this. Anyone who has ever been involved in fundraising will tell you how difficult it can be. I luckily have a few years experience with a couple of different charities about fundraising which is why I decided to opt-out of the more common methods and try something a little more creative and worthwhile.

The bollocks to poverty mosaic

The bollocks to poverty mosaic gives you the chance to be apart of ActionAid’s work at minimal cost. The goal here is to create a huge 5000 photo mosaic of your photos. During collection the mosaic will be continuously updated and the end result will be 5000 photos in the form of the bollocks to poverty logo as seen at the top of this page.

Each photo costs £2 and you can submit more than 1 photo, so 5 photos = £10. The photos can be of anything (no porn etc), preferably though the photos should be of your face. By sending in photos of your face the final result will be a bollocks to poverty image that you will be able to zoom in on and see the individual photos that make this up. The mosaic will be made up of supporters that have contributed to this with one simple message  - Bollocks to poverty!

To make this an even more effective message, I will be collecting donations and photos from people worldwide as I cycle around the world – trying to collect as many nationalities as possible to make this a truly epic message: A collection of 5000 images of people from loads of different nationalities all encased into a mosaic with the simple message - Bollocks to Poverty.

You can get involved in a number of ways:

• If you do not want to be involved financial then you can tweet this or share it on facebook and let people know about it. I want to try and create a real mosaic made up of people from all walks of life.
• You can subscribe to the main website Bollocks to poverty mosaic
• You can donate to the mosaic here and I can upload photos for you from your facebook or something else.
• You can submit your photo via this link and follow instructions to make the donation.
• You can also join the Bollocks to poverty Facebook fan group.

You can see the latest stage of the mosaic over at this link. 5000 photos is a lot of photos but the end result will be worth it. Please share and spread the news and donate to get your photo into the mosaic

You found me searching:

“With every continent explored, every coastline chartered and every river mapped it’s challenges like these that set the benchmark for modern adventures.

What Lee is about to undertake will undoubtedly change his life; but not in the way he expects. Nine months and over 10,000 km since leaving Australia on The Cycle Strongman Expedition (CSX) and I know that it has already changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. Change is always unexpected: one day you’ll go hungry to the point of exhaustion and the next you’ll be eating like a king with a cheeky broad grin from ear to ear. A wise man once told me “…on the road, a smile is your best friend.” You have to learn to say yes to it all; and smile, at yourself, at your situation and at others. It is perhaps the greatest lesson of all and one i am still learning to fully appreciate.

What is it that drives one to explore the world around us? Is it simply answering questions to the unknown? Is it searching inside yourself to find what you are capable of? This ‘call to adventure’ takes many forms. For some it may be discovering the cure for cancer or perhaps following your passion to become an artist, a writer, a musician or a doctor. While for others the passion and joy might be in following the adventure itself. To hit the road, to explore and to learn is the essence of an expedition. Whatever the ‘adventure’ represents we all follow a similar path, leaping into the unknown, conquering our own doubts, fear and anxiety and, as the well respected mythologist Joseph Campbell once put it, either being swallowed up in the process or emerge to see world in a different light.

Cycling around the world is unlike most other expeditions. It’s not tackling Everest, it’s not sailing a feeble wooden vessel into the Antarctic and it’s not journeying to distant foreign lands in search of wealth or material gain. Whatever the reasons individuals decide to undertake such adventures, answering the ‘call to adventure’ is in itself, a bold and commendable undertaking. Apart from the extremes in weather and variety of landscapes, the obstacles are many. You often have to dig deep and search within yourself for that strength to go on. Sometimes you go without food and water; sometimes you have to adapt and other times you have to simply improvise. You’ll need to learn dozens of languages, dodge packs of wild dogs, avoid getting killed by drunk drivers, confront thieves, evade police, avoid those that cause terror, make friends with complete strangers, and tactfully negotiate checkpoints manned by trigger happy and often boarded armies in foreign languages. At times you’ll be completely lost, not shower for weeks and sleep in a gutter. You’ll need to push yourself further and harder than you ever thought possible, and then you’ll have to do it again. Most of the time you don’t know where you’ll end up. You live outside of any definition of a ‘comfort zone’ and in doing so continually challenge yourself. And within all of this you have to simply have faith (because everything will be OK). Say yes to it all!

Constantly confronting yourself each day is a hard and sometimes painful process but at the same time both a liberating and insightful experience. Conquering your own fears, spending long hours on the bike and often being alone for weeks in remote environments is not for the faint at heart. But there is magic is heeding the call to adventure. The magic that is found in the journey and the experience rather than any particular destination.

A little over a year ago, in a similar situation to Lee, I found myself busy planning routes, finding sponsors, researching gear and preparing for the adventure. However quietly inside I was struggling to grapple with what i was about to do. At the time i didn’t understand the ‘why’. Yet i was equally so certain that there had to be a why. I even had a few people who thought they knew the answer tell me why: “…because you can” – which was almost the inverse of the question itself. One colleague at work even went as far as calling it “life avoidance” which couldn’t be further from the truth. It was perhaps the hardest question I kept getting asked. In my head I thought I had lots of answers. But i couldn’t really qualify the feeling inside that drove me to sell everything i owned, leave all that i loved behind and heed this, for lack of a better word, ‘calling’. Once on the road, the ‘why’ didn’t matter any more. It would be something akin to asking “the meaning of life?”. You can give examples of meaning in your life and what you may ‘think’ it is, but sometimes the magic is in the mystery. A great quote comes to mind by Philippe Petit who, when after tight rope walking across the twin towers in New York in the 70′s, was berated by the media that asked “Why, Why WHY? Philippe risked his life to do something so beautiful, to dance on thin air; for us. While being escorted away from police after have played, touted and teased them from some time and eventually surrendering, he simply turned to the media scrum in response, stuck his head out of the police car and remarked, “There is no why!” With perspective and through the felt experience, I understand my own reasons better now. It was a ‘calling’ (of sorts). A calling I believe we all must take; to leap into the unknown conquer our fears and grow as individuals. The calling and the adventure is unique as the individual. The result is the discovery of the world around and within them. For some it may express itself through art, music, helping others or spiritual practice. But for some it requires two wheels and a long time on the road.

Physically The CSX has been quite hard but mentally I found it even tougher. The mountains are high, the roads endless and every day is a new and exciting challenge. You learn to accept the heat, the cold, the humidity, the rain, the headwinds and the exhaustion with a smile. You learn to let go of control, doubt and fear and simply take each day as it comes. Day by day is how you cycle around the world. From little things big things grow.

Being on the road and travelling by bicycle is unique. You give yourself the greatest gift, the gift of time. Time to explore thoughts and ideas, time to reflect, time to just be. A bicycle opens doors. Doors to people and cultures, doors to discover the world and yourself within it. It slows you down to enough to see, smell, hear, touch, taste and feel. A famous Buddhist belief is that if you liberate yourself you liberate the world. I believe there is no more noble pursuit. The rewards lies in the journey itself and within each fleeting experience. You learn to trust yourself to believe in yourself and have faith (in the true sense of the word).

…and so to you Lee, who is about to embark on such a journey, I can only smile. Knowing some of what lies ahead of you makes me happy. Remember to say yes to it all; and smile. I look forward to meeting you on the road. Travel safe. May you find smooth roads and lite wind on your back.

Regards,

Chris Roach

The Cycle Strongman Expedition (December 2009).