In light of a number of people requesting to buy my photos I’m selling them here:  http://www.redbubble.com/people/andrewwelch.

These activities are things that make me feel alive:

1. Photography makes me look at things. It makes me really see. Photographs tell a story, they are exciting, they can inspire ideas, thoughts and memories. They can remind you of people, and places. They can inspire action. They can be art or a just a record. Photos are indelible memories. Photos can be framed to convey information in a certain way. If you have a camera round your neck you are outside of the the realm of the normal civilian. You have the excuse to duck, bend, twist, stand and stare, and get yourself into all kinds of interesting adventures.
2. Cycling. It moves you. It takes you from one place to another. The rhythm of cycling is like the chant of a religious affirmation. Pedal, pedal, pedal… a trance-like state which evokes thoughts and meditation. It gets the blood moving. You can see places you’ve never seen before in 360 3D. Flying down a hill is a thrilling experience. Climbing up a steep hill is a challenge. It balances the mind.
3. Eating. Food is necessary for survival, but it’s a lot more than that. Food is a form of communication. It is a tool to entice and thrill people. It can be a sensory experience and a global adventure. Food from all over the world can be cooked in your kitchen. Through world food you can learn language, about ingredients and the environment, andlifestyles of local people. Food is a great way to say thanks and to bring people together. There is an element of risk in cooking- whether you will get it right or not for your guests which makes it a valuable and impressive skill. A provider of food is instantly and instinctively revered in a community.
4. Skiing. Cold weather, cold air searing up your nostrils. Flying by the seat of your pants down steep beautiful mountains surrounded by awe-inspiring vistas, adrenalin pulsing. Some people have a very good technique and are able to float over the piste. My technique isn’t particularly great and I more have a sense of satisfaction from not killing myself. The best way to learn to ski is go and live somewhere where there is snow. It’s easy to get to the Alpes via train and bus. With the weather we’ve been having recently you can go skiing in Scotland and there are buses and trains that take you right into the mountains, wherever you go.
5. Dancing. What is it about dancing? The movement, the people? The soundwaves in the music? Cyamatics? Dancing is guaranteed to make you feel alive. I get lost in dancing. The mind is busy with thoughts at first but then you feel at one with the other people who are dancing too. There are many styles of dancing and it’s a huge challenge to be able to learn how to dance properly. It is a beautiful art-form. It improves your sense of rhythm. If I try to dance then I often end up looking like I’m cycling so it’s important to break that rhythm and try to move in different ways to remind yourself that it’s possible ;)
6. Writing. A form of transferring information and ideas. The possibility to transfer many more ideas than through speaking, in a structured form that can be rearranged and restructured over time. Writing takes you back to the things that you write about. It makes you think about how to present ideas in a way that other people will understand. It’s human nature to want to be understood and writing gives you the opportunity which is a thrill. The written word is an idea that exists through time whereas a spoken word only exists in a moment. Writing transcends memory and makes ideas indelible. It is a great source of power.
7. Travel. It takes you out of your comfort zone. It moves you from your current environment and presents you with new sensory stimulation. Life on the road is what you make of it. It is time shared with people. It is people living different lifestyles and philosophy. It is history and culture; human development over the years and a snapshot in time of how history has left it’s mark on the people. Travel is moving pictures, it’s your own documentary. Travel has a narrative. By it’s nature, it is a story. Stories are exciting and stories get people motivated. Lives are stories, they inspire and awaken the poet with and make us want to experiment.
8. Art. Humans have been expressing themselves for thousands of year through art. The first cave painting at Laucaux in France show simple but elemental representations of stories from life; hunting scenes and everyday activities. Art is the opportunity to forget all the rules and experiment if you need to. It’s also an adventure into how humans have expressed themselves through sculpture and images through the years. It is the history of a certain part of the human psyche that understands beauty. The artist in society can take a step back out of the framework of the system, observe, and then step back into the system and present what he/she has seen to the world in an understandable (or not- open to interpretation… maybe) form. Art is about movement, energy, craft, respect for ideas, collaboration, community and mutual respect which can all make us feel alive. A society that holds it’s politicians above it’s artists is bound to be boring, mislead and uninspired.
9. Science. You only need to listen to a few of the CERN podcast to get excited about the implications of what is happening at the forefront of scientific progress. Technology will either kill us or transport us into a new epoch. The Hadron particle accelerator in Geneva in a 27km long tube that crashes particles together at near the speed of light to see what comes out. The experiment is a simulation of the conditions at the beginning of the universe when certain types of particles were given mass and how that occurred. They are looking for a certain type of field called the Higgs Boson which is something which according to the maths should theoretically exist but they are trying to get empirical evidence for it. However, they could learn many things ‘by accident’ through the experiments. Many countries are involved in the project including ones that at the political level are at loggerheads including Iran and America.

Others. I will be adding to this list:

1. Music.
2. Sleeping somewhere uncomfortable.
3. Rolling almost naked in snow
4. Having a cold shower
5. Attending the theatre
6. Jumping off small cliffs into the sea
7. Windsurfing
8. Love
9. Family
10. Swimming
11. Eating hot food
12. Public speaking
13. Working with children
14. Attending large gatherings / demonstrations
15. Witnessing awe inspiring nature
16. Putting yourself out of your comfort zone (e.g. doing a very difficult trek in cold conditions) and surviving
17. Getting inspired by good ideas
18. Doing something totally different
19. Being chasing by/being in the presence of a large animal (such as an elephant)
20. Selling everything that is superfluous to your life.

1. Change your scenery. Get on a train and go somewhere else for a weekend. Get on your bike and go for a spin for a couple of hours.
2. Get out of your comfort zone. It’s a difficult one to do but normally feels great afterwards. You can get out of your comfort zone by doing something you fear or making things less comfortable!
3. Meet up with other people. Being with other people is energising and stimulates ideas.
4. Do some exercise. Getting the blood moving is guaranteed to awake you from stagnation. Go out for a run.
5. Get outside. There is no substitute for getting outside for some fresh air.
6. Set yourself a goal. Tell yourself that you are going to finish something you really want to finish by the end of the day. Don’t stop until it’s done. Set the time scale realistically for any task otherwise you risk being disappointed but always aim to push yourself. You will be surprised at the results.
7. Get organised. Do everything you can to remove distractions in your life. Sell useless things on Ebay. Remove all online addictions like Facebook. If you work on a computer; take time to make sure it runs properly. Organise your files and folders and back it up so you don’t lose your work. Get your tools in order, whatever they may be in your life.
8. Read about other people doing the same stuff that you are interested in. I often read the blogs of people doing adventurous things and I am always studying design websites for my work to get inspired.
9. Focus. Trying to do to many things at once just dissipates your energy. You need to focus on one, max two tasks.
10. Finish one thing before you start another. There is nothing more demoralising than having a load of loose ends and nothing properly finished. Everything is a process but learn to know when something is finished and when it needs perseverance.
11. Get angry. Look at your life and if you’re not living your wildest dreams, understand why you aren’t, and then start to take actions to change things. ‘Angst’ is a word in Existentialism that describes the anxiety or energy that is felt through a dissatisfaction with life and the need to ‘make the big leap’ and commit yourself to your goals.
12. Help others. There is nothing more rewarding than helping people in need and contributing to a worthwhile cause. If you can’t get motivated by a social project then you’ve got problems.
13. Read philosophy. Philosophies are ideas about how to live life. In the past a lot of clever people have pondered the reasons for existence and come up with various conclusions. Many of these can provide relevant ways to live life today, and some can’t, but that’s up to you.
14. Watch films, go the the theatre. Acting is an important part of human culture. It allows humans to step out of the rigid structures of societal etiquette and go nuts. Acting is all about energy. Energy is what you need to get motivated. If you are energetic other people will thrive on that energy.
15. Collaborate. There is nothing better for getting motivated on a goal than sharing that goal with someone else. If you start to get demotivated, chances are someone else in the team will still be buzzing off the idea, and can lift you up, and vice verse. Human brains work through free association. One idea leads to another, and another etc etc. More brains mean exponentially more ideas. Ideas are exciting and what you need for the process to achieve your goals.
16. Learn lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is different to vertical thinking in that it is concerned with the generation of ideas. Vertical thinking is the logical linear process of one train of thought. It requires you to be right at each step. Lateral thinking doesn’t require you to be right at each step and in fact it’s possible to jump steps. Being wrong is not bad in lateral thinking.
17. Clear your mind. Take some time out. In the western world we wind ourselves up something chronic and we can’t tell why we’re all crazy. Take a day to do NOTHING. See how you feel the next day. NOTHING doesn’t include vegging out in front of the telly, grrrrr!
18. Make the most of the situation. If it snows, take a leaf out of the book of the Swedish (book?). Run a hot bath, then run out into the snow, roll in it and then get into bath. Repeat. If that doesn’t wake you up…
19. Procrastinate usefully. If you can’t do something you really want to do right now for circumstances out of your control or you are finding yourself unable to concentrate on something you should, do something else you can do and focus on that instead.
20. Look. Observe the greatness around you. Take up photography and spend some time looking closer at things. See the world from a different perspective.

The bus from Tbilisi to Thessalonika was a long distance parcel service which seemed to go on a tour of obscure Georgian towns, spending up to 30 mins in each, picking up hillocks sized piles of parcels and shoveling them into the back of the bus. I helped stack them on partly to try to speed up the process and partly for the novelty experience. All the parcels were stacked up behind me in the bus so when we got moving again I had to stop the precarious Jenga towers of parcels from falling on me and my bike.

A pretty awful photo of me but you can just see the parcels behind and my bike.

I met some Georgians on the bus. One man named Erekle, offered me Khatchapuri and Lobiani and another, a chef going to work in Greece, had some Armenian Sojuk (a kind of spicy sausage) and some homemade Brandy, a bit like drinking a delicious mulled wine mixed with compote. My new friends proceeded through various rounds of traditional toasting which I was invited to joined in with.

At Thessalonika, I found that Erekle, was heading to Geneve. He didn’t speak English and seemed to be looking for help to reach his destination so I offered to help.

We ventured into the Thessalonika bus station where I  had hoped there would be a bus at 9pm, but we had to wait until the morning as it was the low season and therefore the buses were less frequent. We camped outside the station on top of gathered rows of chairs outside a cafe.

It was cold but I had my sleeping bag so I was snug. I gave Erekle my inflatable rollmat to sleep on. There was another man who was probably waiting for a morning bus too (or he might have been a tramp sleeping there) who made an elaborate sleeping and security system consisting of 15 chair gathering and arranged around him.

In the morning we caught the bus over the mountains heading for the port of Igoumenitsa. When I’ve taken the bus before it was summer. In the winter, the countryside was transformed into a snow-covered mountain scene- extremely pretty and Christmassy!

Some much needed sleep was taken on the bus, between bouts of reading - The Cosmos by Carl Sagan. At Igoumenitsa we spent the afternoon eating cheap kebabs and then caught the boat to Ankona. On the boat, thinking we had found a quiet comfortable corner to sleep on deck, at 2am they started the music and transformed the place into a nightclub- not conducive to a good night’s sleep.

From Ankona we took the train to Milan smoothly passing along the coast before heading inland over reams of flat agricultural land- vineyards and other crops, on a grey overcast day. In Milan, I helped Erekle buy a ticket to Genev. We rushed through the busy station for him to catch the next train. It had been better to have company on the journey, pick up a bit more Georgian and see his first reactions of Europe- which were mainly - very expensive and that he was missing Georgian food (although I did manage to get him to eat a tasty Greek kebab).

After Erekle left, I left the station and cycled to find some food for dinner. I wheeled my bike through the impressive lobby of Milan station. It was very cold and I pedaled furiously down the street to warm up. There was a big market selling various overpriced tourist souvenirs outside the station. I passed a grand square with posh hotels. Christmas lights lined the main boulevard. It seemed surprisingly quiet for a city nearing Christmas. I found a small market away from the station and bought some food.

My train was at 11.30pm which meant I had six hours to kill. I spent the majority of the time reading but Milan station is cold and drafty so I wandered around with my bike and took it out to pedal furiously round the block to warm up again. It was only at 10.30pm that I discovered the ticket office had heating. I went and sat in there and was chucked out 5 minutes later by a policeman who told me the office was shutting-  c’est la vie.

The ‘Artesia’ night train from Milan to Paris arrived and I wheeled my bike along the platform to the last carriage of 6 berth sleeper cabins. It was quite a cosy affair. I shared my cabin with mostly young travellers including some Indians who I chatted with. They were from Delhi and had come to travel around Europe. The guy was proud of the fact he’d spent all his 3000 Euro budget in two weeks. The atmosphere was like being in a youth hostel.

My bunk offered a welcome night’s sleep in a bed (of sorts)- at least I was horizontal, disturbed only by the police who arrived to check passports. One passenger in the cabin didn’t have a passport or luggage and so he disappeared with the police!

In the morning we arrived in Paris. I built my bike on the platform, got a complementary map of Paris, and directions to the bus station in the Gallieni district. I decided I would cycle as the weather was beautiful and it wasn’t far. Paris was just waking up as I pedalled down the streets and cycle paths passing sleepy looking people.  I pedalled into the Eurolines bus terminal, bought a ticket and was on the bus heading for Calais.

The  bus went on the boat over the channel because of a problem with the Channel Tunnel, which I narrowly missed out on getting involved in. It felt good to be on my way back to see my family but also exciting to be on the road again. It was good to have a change of scenery.

I enjoyed sitting and observing people on the boat. It was interesting to be amongst English people. I don’t know whether it’s just English people or what but it was chaotic on the boat. I don’t think people expected to be taking the boat. Everyone crowded off the buses. I heard a lot of people complaining, and nattering away. Then on the boat, there was a mass exodus to the food hall. People drifted about in groups. Some seemed to be on a mission to explore the boat. I was sitting by accident underneath a map of the decks and so people kept coming up to me and asking me for directions to places on the boat!

The boat eventually reached English shores and as the white cliffs drew closer, everyone funnelled down into the buses and we were off again down the motorway in the dark, I snoozed. We arrived in London at about 7 pm.

That’s how I got back to England. Since I’ve been back, I’ve spent a nice Christmas at home with the family and I’ve been working to earn funds, and staying with friends in London. My plans are to do some more travelling by bike around April/May time and I’m also applying to University. Tom and I are planning an overhaul of the website in the coming months, before Tom leaves in April, so watch this space.

My sister

Leicestershire under the snow

Sun through the wintered trees in a forest near my home

I went to the bus station in Ortachala in Tbilisi at 9.30 am and cycled practically straight onto a Marshrutka (transit van minibus). This dispelled my fears of having difficulty having available space to take myself and the bike in the cramped little bus. There was just enough space. The early bird catches the worm and I was lucky this time unlike my previous 6 hour wait for the bus to leave because there were no passengers.

The driver seemed to be on the same wavelength when I tried to explain  how I could take my bike apart using hand gestures. I paid 10 lari (about £4) (haggled from 20) to put the bike in the back seats and the usual 30 lari for the fare.

I had the back seats to myself until a broad-shouldered babouska boarded the bus. This meant I could no longer sit on my seat squarely and had to uncomfortably perch my back against the curvature of the seat. Marshrutka rides are never supposed to be comfortable affairs.

Read previous blog post  for a description of a typical Marshrutka journey.

The border crossing went smoothly. I now need only to pay $10 for a visa giving me 21 days. It used to be a mandatory $50 for 3 months. At lunch time I procured a juicy kebab at the half way rest stop and sat in the winter sun watching the rocky river flowing past. I wondered where the water was coming from, staring up at a dry baron cliff sided valley that the road ran through. Armenian mountain landscape is about as unforgiving and forbidding looking as it comes and I love it.

I arrived in Yerevan, unpacked my bike and said goodbye to the giggling Russian girls at the front of the bus who seemed very amused by my bicycle. I remembered the way to Tom’s so I pedaled past Republika square, up to the park passing the tall silver ‘Mother Armenia’ statue and to Tom’s flat. Inside he was adding final preparatory touches to a fragrant curry, before allowing it to simmer away for an hour or two whilst he went for an Armenian language lesson.

Tom told me that the horse-following to the hot spring was off because the hot spring was covered in snow, but we were still going for an epic ride. The next morning we saddled up early and met Tigran, Tom’s friend. We racked up the bikes on the back of his car and drove to Garni about 40 km away from Yerevan. We parked next to the Garni temple, which is where we started the ride.

A crisp wintery morning. Mist hung over the hillsides. The strong Asian sun evaporated the morning dew. Some villagers were ambling about sweeping the pavement outside their houses. A truck waited outside the local store, to deliver bread.

We passed through the village and descended down a cobbled track to a spring where we filled up the Camelbaks with clear mountain water. A dark green soviet van clattered past. The driver waved and smiled at us, cigarette hanging from his lips. Shortly after we passed a man on horseback who gave us a cheery ‘barevzdis’.

At the valley bottom, we followed the river up the gorge, passing a fish farm with a huge dog tied up beside the road. Thankfully it was very docile and dozed in the mud instead of take offence with us.  I pedalled along avoiding puddles to prevent getting covered in mud at the beginning of the ride.

The land of Armenia is higher in altitude than Georgia. You’re already above the tree line so the geography in general is noticeable different. Rocky embankments scattered with hardy shrubs and plants somehow gripping on to the loose dry soil and stone. Although the sun was strong that morning, in the shadow it was colder and I pedalled faster to warm up.

The track climbed up to the gate of the Garni natural park and the WWF Norway funded eco-centre - a very quaint and well-constructed looking building with a jolly looking gatekeeper wearing army-issue jacket and trousers and smoking a cigarette.

Tigran chatted with him for an extended amount of time. Tom remarked that he is a very intrepid character. He is in the process of collecting GPS and GIS data for the area. Tom mentioned that he is in the habit of chatting at length with anyone knowledgeable he meets in order to further his expertise of the area.

I had a good feeling about the ride from when Tom initially mentioned it. I knew when Tigran lifted his bike up off the doubletrack and hauled it up the embankment onto a grassy rocky piece of singletrack sided by heather and wild thyme that I was in my element. Gripped with a layer of frost, the plants and trees looked eroded and weathered, worn out by a struggle to survive in difficult conditions – little rain, freezing winters and scorching summer sun. Now well into autumn, winter was just around the corner, offering no respite.

The track trundled delightfully along, through little ruts, and strewn with metamorphic baby-head sized boulders. My legs brushing passed the fragrant shrubs. The path reminded me of paths I used to take on rides in the Yorkshire Dales. Moorland carpetted with low-lying heather. Shale-sprinkled paths which looked like they had formed as naturally as the plants. Perfect for mountain bikes- varied and grippy.

Up we went and passed a family who later we met again at the ruins of a church on a hill. They were gathered to have a barbeque. They had a fire going and big chunks of chicken were being pushed onto long metal skewers ready to be cooked. I started to think of the Basturma (traditional Armenian salty sausage) sandwiches I’d made for lunch. The taste brought back to the forefront of my senses from the slices I’d slyly eaten rather than put in the sandwiches.

The next section  of the ride was what is traditionally known in the trade as a ‘bike-hike’. The path was invisible to the untrained eye. Luckily we had Tigran with a GPS. That however, proved unhelpful so he asked some people which way. They pointed out a route up the hillside and added that it would be difficult.

Unfazed we pushed and crawled with the bikes up a steep rocky path following a wayward gulley full of dry grass, thorny rose bushes, sandy stone with crumbling gravel underfoot. I struggled to find my footing on the loose ground and used my bike as a support. The air became fresher and clearer and the sun felt strong as we emerged onto the top of the first hill. Our altitude now at 1800m above sea level. A dreamlike snowy alpine plateau was visible in the distance it beckoned and awakened my inquisitiveness as if it was the surface of another planet.

We stopped to eat some berries, round red ones with a pithy orange fruit inside and Tigran pointed our some bear poo. He said that bears also like to eat those berries, clearly visible from the seeds in the poo. I tried to remember which bear between the brown and black you are supposed to fight and which you are supposed to play dead, as it might come in useful.

We decided to stop for lunch in the shadow of a weary looking but sinewy grey barked tree with small yellow and green leaves. It reminded me of a giant Bonzai tree. Lunch consisted of Basturma sandwiches, smoked fish, bread, cheese, corn on the cob, chocolates and then a sleep in the sun – perfect. I awoke after 20 minutes of blissful snoozing feeling refreshed and commented to Tom you never realise how much you need to go to chill out in the mountains until you go and do it.

The simplicity of just having enough for the day ride and not bringing camping stuff was a relief whilst pushing and granny-cranking the bike up challenging steep singletrack. We passed along a track barely a tyre’s width wide. It was positioned half way down a fairly steep scree slope with a steep loose rocky embankment leading down into the valley on the other side. It was difficult to make out a path at all. The kind of lunacy I tend to enjoy. I flew myself into it, bringing into play the old mantra of focusing on the track and nothing else so not to fall fail to ‘target fixation’ and tempt my front wheel to point down the scree hill.

The path reached an impossibly rocky doubletrack.  It looked like the boulders had fell there after a impromptu jettison of comets from space. This arduous last major section of climbing was well worth the reward as we reached the plateau and the wonderful tranquil sound of a bubbling mountain stream, stopping to drink and wash the sweat from hot, dusty, and grimy brows atop satisfied facial expressions.

I looked across at the snow on the mountains over the plateau and felt a pull to them but we would not have time to reach them today. We continued on to the edge of a canyon overlooking the Geghard monastery, part of which is built dramatically into the rock. For the next 5 or so km we followed patchy sections of 4×4 track, crossing over boggy pampus grass-patched streams and then off the track across fields with more boulders. After a while I realised it was better to walk than punish the bike as it was akin to riding over corrugated concrete.

Without tracks and landmarks in particular, we were relying on Tigran’s GPS and sense of direction. We traversed a shallow gulley. Descending furiously into it, and still pumping from adrenalin I ploughed straight across the river at the bottom as Tom helpfully said- ‘it’s too deep mate’. I subsequent dabbed my feet, soaking them through- doh!

Tigran would say things like ‘we should bare left now if we want to head back’ or ‘head to that far valley to reach the village’. A discussion ensued about remaining daylight and whether we wanted to end up cycling in the dark. Rather than going back the short route which would have have meant a large proportion of the descent on the road, we headed towards the canyon on the edge of the plateau.

The epic canyon came into view as we approached. The distant landscape descended into the afternoon haze. A river meandered it’s way along the canyon bottom. Shrubs and trees clung on for dear life to the side of the rocky crags.

The ensuing descent was a rocky doubletrack following the edge of the shear cliffs which plummeted down to the village below. We scooted and skidded, dodging boulders and rutted gulleys.

At the bottom we ended up, by accident, in the farmstead of one of the villagers, guarded by numerous dogs enraged with the scent of cyclist in the air.  The lady sent us back the correct way and we found the track that lead us through the village and continued descended down into the valley bottom and followed the river.

Tigran told us that ‘it was a good village’ and one of only a few in Armenia that still doesn’t receive electricity.

Late afternoon sun glowed orange upon the upper hillsides which were still catching the sun as I followed the track which would lead us back to the gates of the park. I passed a man walking up the hill. I said ‘I don’t speak Armenian’, he replied in English – ‘Armenia, very beautiful country’, and I agreed ‘yes, very’.

Hungry and by now pretty tired we hauled ourselves back to the car. On the way we met the same green soviet bus that we had seen in the morning. Tigran managed to get towed by it up the steep cobbled road into the village. Tom was determined to ride and cursed as his tyres slipped on algae covered stones. Admirably he managed to ride the entire climb back up into the village. However, his achievement obviously went to his head a little.

Riding along the road in the village, Tigran was chased by a nasty dog that was snarling at his ankles. In response he tried to kick it in the head multiple times. Tom, on a herioc high from the climb obviously thought he would try to aid his friend, and swerved his bike towards the dog. The outcome of this was that Tom somehow managed to lose control of the bike, flip over the handlebars and role along the ground.

The dog, seeing this crazed human appearing to go extreme lengths to attack him/her (sorry I didn’t check), understandably dismissed his pursuit, stopped chasing Tigran and thoughtfully wandered off. I imagine it would make him think twice about chasing bicycles in the future, but I doubt it. Tom was relatively unscathed other than a bruised ego, grazed hands and knee.

We headed back to Yerevan and ate delicious dolma cooked by Tenny.

The ride demonstrated to me the potential for mountain biking and the beauty of the Armenian landscape. It also sparked my enjoyment of being in wild places. Inside me, I felt something draw closer to what I was looking for in terms of an idyllic wilderness riding experience. 40 km from a capital city it was possible to immerse oneself in tranquil nature with views of snow covered mountain plateaus. Tracks running across country lent themselves ideally to challenging wilderness treks by bike. No matter what other future plans I make, I feel that the area of the Caucasus, the countryside of Georgia and Armenia is growing more deeply rooted in my mind, and I hope to explore further routes with new found (and old friends). Tigran, Tom and I are planning another 2 day ride before I return at Christmas to England.

On Tuesday evening we rode through the streets of Tbilisi to the bus station where David wangled us putting our three bikes and kit in the back. The bus trundled off about 35 km to Zhinvali where we would start our trip and where David’s gran lived. We stayed the night,  munched many freshly picked apples, plates of lobiani (bean stew), and went to sleep early. There was no electricity and hasn’t been for one year because another local resident couldn’t pay their electricity bill.

We awoke to a chilly morning and the sun emerging over the valley ridge. More lobiani for breakfast and then we made tracks. We followed the highway for 5 km up to the Shatilli turning and then along that road, a mixture of destroyed asphalt, potholes and dirt-track. We passed chickens and cows being herded along the road, and people going to fetch their morning bread and cigarettes.

The first vista of note was reaching the man made emerald Zhinvali lake. The expanse of water stretched away into the far gulleys. Bare mountain sides succumbed to the water. White horses danced briskly over the textured water’s surface.

The changes in the season could be seen everywhere. Bright autumnal yellows, red, and browns created a visual feast. I’d double-take at the vibrant shades, like paint daubed straight from the pot onto the landscape. I never remembered autumn colours being so rich. In England I associated brown leaves with autumn. Perhaps it was just Georgia or perhaps I was somehow more attuned to the colours. The lush foliage was like a elixir for the soul. I wanted to escape from the ‘data’ of everyday living into much more soothing natural surroundings. Something instinctual urged me onwards like self-prescribed medicine.

With almost a hint of desperation I churned my legs along, not used to the loaded bike, banging the wheels over rocks with misplaced steering maneuvers. A bus drove past and threw up a cloud of dust as school kids waved and shouted out of the window.

I switched back to SPDs (Shimano clip-less pedals) for the ride and I began to get knee twinges that I thought would have disappeared after a good stint on flat pedals. The persistent nagging injury was still haunting me from as far back as the end of my last trip to India.  I had to stop to make adjustments to try to find a sweet spot in the positioning of the cleat but with every change I made the pain would start to creep back after a short time.

The beauty of the surrounding valley was about as idyllic as we could hope for. Auburn-coloured trees on steep brown valley sides interspersed with vein-like waterfalls, deciduous trees shedding their leaves clinging onto the lower hills. A majestic fast flowing river followed the valley bottom gradually becoming thinner, rockier and faster flowing as we progressed. David said there were some big fish in the rapid waters and I imagined a dinner of wild mountain salmon sizzling over a fire. We rarely saw a soul on the road. Occasionally we passed a man on a horse or a donkey or sometimes an old soviet van or a truck bellowing grey smoke.

David on his bike, free of luggage, rode ahead and Tom, finding the pace a little fast, dragged behind. He cursed his fitness, although his detraining is understandable after a month of celebrating his wedding.

Tom’s mindset when he visits Georgia is to consume as much delicious Georgian food as possible. As lunchtime neared bowls of steaming Ostri (a traditional spicy Georgian beef stew) could be seen rotating round in his eyes. Unfortunately the restaurant in the next village was closed so we settled for chocolate bars and some puffed rice crisps, that didn’t really warrant the effort of eating.

This was much to all our disappointments, but the promise of Ostri in the next village was a good motivator.  It was 25 km to Barisakhlo, and just before the start of the big off-road climb towards Shatilli. That was our aim for the end of the day.

We planned to get all the way to Shatilli initially – 96 km away from the road, but we were overoptimistic. At Barisakhlo we decided to load up with food and camp the night at the next opportunity as the light was already starting to fail. We stopped at a little shop to buy cheese. The lady pottered off to her house and returned with a whole round cow’s cheese about 2kg worth, so we bought half. The cheese was the strongest most pungent stuff known to mankind. Tom described it as both ‘wrong’ and ‘on another level’, which is surprising seeing as we’ve both eaten Fromage de Banon in the past.

David also bought a couple of huge loaves of bread from a farm. I asked him how much they were and he said 1.50 lari. I replied ‘that’s expensive compared to the normal 70 tetri’. Then I saw the bread, two huge dense loaves that reminded me of the Trabzon loaves in Turkey… a bargain.

Sweeping areas of grass lead down to the river side as tempting places to wash away the day’s dirt and grime.

After the village we turned off the next suitable looking side track onto an area of grass and  building ruins. David told us it had in Soviet times been a village, constructed for the building of a tunnel directly from Georgia to Russia through the mountain. The construction had apparently stopped for the dubious reason that there could be an accident where an oil tanker could spill into the river and pollute the Tbilisi drinking water. Perhaps, I mused, it was more a paranoia that the water might be deliberately poisoned or a multitude of other conspiracy theories.

Sharing the same camping area we met a group of student alpinists who had been living there for a month doing expeditions into the mountains and a drunken shepherd who seemed mostly concerned with consuming vodka and pilfering cigarettes from anyone who would donate. In exchange he would offer a tale or twelve.

David built a huge bonfire and released the pyromaniac within. He claimed with sincerity in his eyes, that it was to ward off giant red wolves. We ate a dinner of potato, pea and noodle stew, dried fish, hunks of bread and gas-inducing cheese washed down with beer and got an early night. It was cold at night. I had no idea because I was tucked up in my -25 sleeping bag and slept wonderfully, whereas David emerged in the morning shivvering from his thinner sleeping bag.

We left and took a few minutes to investigate the entrance of the big derelict concrete tunnels at the foot of the off-road mountain climb.

It was another beautiful sunny day, no sign of snow clouds descending yet. As we emerged up through the treeline, the raw white and black mountain peaks could be seen clearly in the distance. David explained he could also see the same peaks from his village near Gudauri to the west.

Tom increasingly needed rests and David was increasingly creeping ahead which started to cause a bit of interpersonal bother, culminating in a point at which they both said they were ready to go back to Tbilisi. A bit of diplomacy and compromise meant we tentatively continued. The terrain certainly wasn’t easy going with loaded bikes, ‘climbing-out-of-the-saddle’ steep rocky tracks. More masochistic than fun.

Hills with steep grassy banks lead up to into-thin-air cliff sides. We passed a village nested beside the river in the valley bottom, guard dogs barking at us from the houses. Other singular houses lonely up on the hillside made me wonder who lived there and the simplicity of their lifestyle. Houses cobbled together from any building materials available.

We saw a couple of trucks loaded with supplies for Shatilli, probably helping to stock up before the road passes were snowed under and impassable.

The hillsides gradually became barer as we passed the tree line and you could feel the temperature dropping. Sheep and cattle lazily grazed, shepherds and their dogs watched wearily from afar. Occasionally David would stop to chat to a local and ask about the weather.

David decided it would be a good idea to use the lead he had gained over us to go and stock up with another half kilo of cheese for some strange reason. Having refused to eat our potato/ noodle stew the night before he preferred to stick to Georgian fare of bread and cheese.

The process of pedaling had become near to cripplingly painful to Tom who had slowed to a crawling pace up the last section of climb. My knees were also complaining with the SPD pedals. I wanted to get my knees used to using them again.

Eventually nearing 5.30pm we make it up to the pass. The overriding factor was that Tom and David had managed to settle their differences and we all stuck together. A stark reminder of the perils of group expeditions. The defining moments of the journey.

At the pass, there was a table for a supra (a traditional Georgian toasting session), along with a single granite memorial cross, some candles and a bottle of vodka. I took a couple of swigs to toast the dead, the liquid strong, hostile and repulsive seemed a fitting addition to the remoteness and wildness of the location.

A decision making process ensued about whether to descend down to the village of Shatilli. It was about to get dark. We couldn’t camp where we were because David didn’t have a warm enough sleeping bag, and it would definitely be into minus figures as we were at the snowline. Descending down to Shatilli would mean repeating the 25km 1200m climb the next day, which Tom didn’t want to do. So we made the slightly difficult but right decision to descend back down the way we came.

I was determined to get some good film footage, but I now had little time to do it before darkness. I rushed to film David speeding down the track, dust kicked up behind him. It was liquid. Flying across the environment. I put the camera away and followed. Not quite as fun with a bike loaded with stuff, with a lesser bike and wheels I would have ended up in a pile of twisted spokes.

The darkness gradually set in, the sky was purple, mixed into pale orange and blue as the last remnants of the sun’s light filtered through the atmosphere. Tom laying on the ground and filmed David and I skimming his ear with our knobblies kicking dust into the camera lenses silhouetted against the backdrop of the mountains.

The rest of the descent was by headlights. Thinking back, it’s astonishing that it’s possible to descend 20km in the dark on a thin track with a shear drop to the side without light. At one point we were chased by a pack of Caucasian hounds whining, barking and bounding along bearing teeth. It was comforting not to be able to see them. Visual stimulation reduced, my memories are of inside my head, a virtually created schematic of my surroundings based on glimpses of track by headlight and sound and patterns.

We made it down, and camped back as the previous night. David adamant once again on creating a huge bonfire to scare off the red-wolves twice as big as wild dogs he claimed. We sat and he told me stories about his meetings with Russian girls going skiing in Gudauri and other tales….

The following morning we befriended a dog, possibly because in the morning we found  it had raided our rubbish, left out the night before, and consumed the liver of the dried fish which none of us could face eating. When we started cycling it bounded along with us barking with glee. After a while it  probably regretted the decision as the only thing I had to feed it was repugnant cheese and squashed cucumber during the adventure it unknowingly (or knowingly – I don’t speak dog) em-barked on (excuse the pun).

At one point David managed to have a race with a guy on a horse and beat him. The film footage has to be seen to be believed – seriously.

We protected the dog from other packs of wild dogs by throwing stones, and cycling very fast swerving towards them.

After 25 kilometres of running beside us, I admit I had developed a fondness for the dog. A surprisingly handsome specimen different from the usual mongrels. However, thoughtlessly we lost the dog on a downhill, without the patience to wait and as quickly as our friendship had been bonded it was sadly broken. I hope the dog, which somehow got the name of Robinson Winston Dog-Friday, is okay in it’s new location.

We returned via the same road back to David’s village and finished the ride with a feast of Khinkhali meat dumplings and Katchapuri- cheese pizza, washed down with flagons of beers which we smashed together over the table.

It was a good introduction to self-supported off roads trips. Next time I’d try to minimise the equipment further but that which already have is spot on but I would take less. The Extrawheel could be combined with a  full suspension bike. I think the Extrawheel is definitely a better choice than panniers for off-road trips because it’s a lot less strain on the bike frame and offers better bike handling.

I really enjoyed the trip, the off-road and the tranquility of the mountains. It was important that we managed to overcome the differences between the different members of our small group. There is a deeper communication that exists between humans and the environment that can only be connected to when you get out into the true wilds. A peace in the complexity and wonder of nature that is calming and reassuring.

More photos on my Flickr account here.

All the cyclists from the locality were there including some 50 teenagers with mountain bikes and bmxes.

A huge  inflatable earth was carried by some teenagers and a girl on a skateboard.  The police came to make sure the road was closed and oversee the operations. When it was time to go, some of the cyclists sped off like it was a race. I made sure I got out first and filmed the chaos of cyclists speeding round me.

Somehow the cars still managed to squeeze down the road much to my annoyance. Obviously the police’s jurisdiction didn’t stretch to 4×4 drivers as one almost knocked me off my bike and the guy shouted out his window at me. I felt sorry for the poor lost soul.

It was a nice event and great to see all the cyclists on the street, something that two years ago was unthinkable. Now it seems that cycling is not only becoming acceptable but popular.

A healthy community has been developing out of the old soviet velodrome and the Mr ‘Kwicher’ the bike mechanic and father of Beso, a very enthusiastic downhill mountain biker - is the orchestrator behind all the cheap bikes and repairs. Watch this space for more local events and head over to http://www.mountainbiking.ge/blog for more about local cycling.

More photos here.

I returned via Public transport back from France to Tbilisi  at the end of the summer. I met Tom in Venice and we spent a long and strange evening sleeping on a bench drinking wine with two German girls and a American / Iranian guy. One of the girls had a Georgian name from her ancestry.

The travel was one of those where you have to wait for a day for anything to turn up. So we had to wait for the boat to leave the port in Venice and then slept in the greek port of Igominitsa, before taking the bus on to Thessolonika, Istanbul and back to Tbilisi, and Tom went back to Yerevan.

The positive side to all this public transport travel was that I got to do a lot of reading and thinking and arrived back to the city with a new-found energy and take on things. As soon as I arrived, I went with my friend Nino up to the Tbilisi sea and went for a swim, which was something I hadn’t done before even though the beautiful reservoir on my doorstep. This got me thinking about how it’s easy not to make the most of your location. This reminded me of something my friend Manoog said about when you are travelling, you often introduce your hosts to things where they live, they never knew existed. This is especially true for bicycle travel by which you see the world differently to a car, and avoid the highways and take the backstreets.

The weather that evening was warm, there was a lightning storm in the distance, music and fireworks blarring from a wedding and it was generally a nice way to arrive back. In addition, whilst I’d been away, my friend Vincent had decided to distill 20 litres of Absinthe and 20 litres of Georgian Chacha, with the notes, ‘drink in moderation’ and ‘good to drink’ taped on respectively. Thus constituted the most alcohol I’d laid eyes on in my life. In fact, although I did try the Absinthe, I didn’t turn into Van Gogh and the huge glass cask was meant for a wedding of my friend, Aurillien, whome I had previously travelled back to France with in a bus full of Georgia dancers. Unfortunately the wedding happened on the same day as Tom’s wedding so I was disappointed I couldn’t attend. Apparently it was a great party and they all ended up in the swimming pool.

In the next couple of weeks, I went out Mountain Biking frequently and also took a trip to Zhinvali to visit my friend David’s village home with epic grape vines and buckets full of the delicious grapes. Afterwards we went for a swim in the Zhinvali lake, which is dammed to create hydroelectric power. The reservoir is huge and the water cold but very refreshing!

Fanny arrived back in Tbilisi after the summer with her new Kona mountain bike which is very happy with. She is still working away from the city but is looking forward to using the bike more when she is back. My welded Explosif frame is still holding out after many off-road rides, so I’ve still yet to swap it for the new Caldera frame that Kona provided, although I’m eager to try the new frame out.

Tom’s wedding happened on the 19th September. I went off to Yerevan on the 15th in the hair-raising Marshrutka (minibus). Continuing the theme of having to wait for public transport I sat 6 hours for the Marshrutka to leave when too few people turned up. I moved between 3 different Marshrutkas, and saw the world through the eyes of a Marshrutka driver, hanging about in the dust outside the train station.

Eventually the bus prepared to leave. I was bundled in with a gaggle of Armenian women who were ’smuggling’ lemons in bags and crates into Yerevan. I was later told by Tom that lemons are a lot more expensive in Yerevan than Tbilisi because they don’t grow as easily. The journey was cramped, the women bantered endlessly and the man lying over two chairs and crates of lemons beside me thought that I wouldn’t mind if he chain-smoked failing to blow his smoke out of the small gap in the window.

However, this was partly made up for by, that fact that, when we stopped, I ate two of the most delicious kebabs and managed to sleep for a considerable amount of the journey. How on earth I managed this is beyond me because it’s akin to sleeping in a pepper grinder. My dreams were like a 3D first person spaceship racing game, hurtling through tunnels avoiding objects.

I arrived, met Tom, sporting new (but old) retro haircut, and moved into the luxurious, elegant, throwback apartment that had been hired for Tom’s family and friends to stay in for the wedding duration. The next 10 days were wonderful  spending time looking around Yerevan with Tom’s brother, family and the one friend who managed to make it all the way from England to Yerevan, Beccy. Surprisingly Allen is also her surname - the same as Tom. Entirely a coincidence, although I did wonder whether it might cause complications (it didn’t).

We did the Cascade walk and visited the moving Armenian Genocide museum, which I recommended if you’re in Yerevan. There is a lot of well-presented historical evidence from an awful time in the country’s history. An example of how humans can act when they forget they are human and put ideas before common sense and humanity.

Tom’s stag night consisted of taking over his favourite Irish bar and dancing to a cheesy selection of music. After which point things became somewhat blurry for him. Tom has been reading a lot of physics books recently and he decided to regurgate all the information he had absorbed in a random order for most of the night. The following morning, the photos told the story of a man who had taken certainly managed to fulfill the required criteria of a stag night, although that man was no where to be seen until the afternoon.

On the wedding day itself we all went to Tenny’s family’s apartment, and were greeted by the whole family dancing in the traditional Armenian way, and it seemed the socially acceptable thing to join in. The dancing in question tended to involve holding your arms in the air twisting your hands, and creating shapes, or clapping, to the medley of Armenian pop music. Tenny went and got changed into her gown and arrived to much excitement, emotion and hysteria. She did look beautiful and it was a lovely moment to see Tom and Tenny together in their full regalia.

Tom had organised a little surprise for the transport to the wedding in the form of a cycle rickshaw and the membership entirety of a local cycle club following behind.We followed the procession down to Republic Square where they did the traditional 2 circuits before going to the church.

It was a small, peaceful church in the suburbs, which was doing a roaring trade in weddings that particularly Saturday. I followed them down the aisle with Tom’s bro and then did my duty of holding a cross above Tom’s head for ten minutes, whilst the couple were married by the priest. It was a nice, simple ceremony. Afterwards there was a party at a hotel, and I made my first ever best man’s speech, which thankfully the preparation for, paid off, and it went down very well. The night passed eating, drinking and dancing away. Well and truly a celebration!

There were numerous more meetings between the families before everyone went home. I got the bus back to Tbilisi. I arrived back and realised that I’d had such a good time  and also realised a few things through my experience and change of scenery. Namely that I needed to get out of Tbilisi on a wild mountain bike adventure in the mountains (as you do), and also that I would return back to England again at Christmas to spend it with my family even though it would mean another arduous 6 days of public transport, intensive mediation and further draining of funds.

I decided that the future of my bike travel is more likely to lie back at the root of the original idea of Ride Earth. A progression of long distance off-road mountain bike adventures, rather than on-road slogging epics. For me an on-road tour is a totally different experience to a true venture into the wild. My views have also been partly influenced by two cyclists I hosted last week. One of which was Koen Degroote,  a Belgian, not shy of taking his racing style touring bike off the tarmac (he is a big fan of the Belgian cobble-stone races). Of course in some parts of the world the roads are no more than dirt tracks and a mountain bike is better suited than a traditional touring bike.

Tom, myself and some of my Georgian friends are planning a ride, leaving next Monday, akin to the May 06 Scotland mountain bike ride which you can read about in the archives of this blog. An off-road route into the mountains with camping equipment. It was something that I’d been planning to do but that I realised I couldn’t wait any longer for it to happen and now I’m really looking forward to it.

Last weekend I DJed (first time- ambition achieved!) at a party in some woods outside Tbilisi in a beautiful mountain setting. Some friends had found the location and hauled generators and speakers there in order to make the party. The following day we awoke to electronic beats still pounding, delightful weather and an incredibly beautiful landscape of mountains and forest which Fanny mentioned was akin to the Haute-Province Alpes near her home. David, my Georgian friend, again spoke of off-road mtb routes he knew that it was possible to take in that area and I was thrilled at being in such an incredible place with such potential for riding.

We are going to make a cross-country race on the 1st November in Tbilisi. There should be up to 30 participants riding the course marked out in Vake park, and above the Turtle lake. Email me if you’re interested in participating.

I recently met an American guy working on a project to promote the OpenStreetMap website in Georgia and to get people to have ‘mapping parties’ to create open-source, free to use maps of Georgia. I have been looking into adding mountain bike routes and making them available through the Mountain Biking Georgia website.

I’m not finding a lot in the way of design work. I have odds and ends but nothing sustainable. However, I have been teaching web design which is a fantastic process of sharing and organising my process and knowledge. I am continuing to write the book of the travels from England to the Caucasus and so far I’ve written 156k words. I’m currently writing about the first trip to Armenia back in 08 when Tom and I parted ways and cycled through the country in the snow to Yerevan. The process which eventually ended up in Tom meeting Tenny, but that’s all history!

I’ve taken up running again in the mornings, which I have realised how much I missed. I used to run a lot when I was living in the UK. I like the different kind of energy a run gives you. Compared to cycling, I work up more of a sweat in a shorter time and go through a more taxing mental process to keep the rhythm. I think that thought process of keeping going and holding a rhythm is one of the things I enjoy the most because it clears my mind for the rest of the day.

And so I’m taking each week as it comes. With the longer term projections for travel reasonably far away, I’m feeling happy to be fulfilling the task I set myself to keep busy and stimulated in whilst I’m here in Tbilisi. However, setting a limit to the time I will be here, has given me a boost to get moving and motivated as an open-ended ‘another year’ was starting to hang over me and seem like a long time, causing me to stagnate.

Since the round the world or bust idea petered out I’ve been thinking about places I would really like to visit and I intend to follow up with more research. The adventure continues, but it’s become life, with real friends, community and activities in my current location. Something that it’s difficult to have whilst travelling alone in a new location everyday.

Photos to come shortly

Until next time…

In the mean time check out http://www.mountainbiking.ge (mountain biking in Georgia website) and http://www.andrewwelch.info (my art and design blog)

Some experiences stay in my mind in particular. They started at Agarak, the Armenian-Iranian border. I remember arriving, riding next to the border fence, feeling scared cycling over the bridge of the river signifying the border, the border guards poised with guns on tall turrets. After tentatively pedaling across the ‘No man’s land’, and going through the administrative process, I felt relieved, I had managed to get across the border even though the border officers tried their best to nullify my visa. Perhaps my passport was fake because it said ‘Great Britain’ instead of ‘England’ and it also said ‘Ireland’ which wasn’t England either. Anyway, I got through and I had a pant-tearing ride down a wind-tunnel of a valley. Steep pointy mountains. A scary, exotic but exciting place on first impressions.

On the way to Tabriz I decided to hitch through a nasty road tunnel. A friendly chap in a pick-up truck stopped. After the tunnel I asked him where he was going and he said, Tehran so I thought why the heck not and asked to go with him. We arrived after hours in the cramped truck, complete with special ‘chay glass holders’. Whilst the man was waiting in a queue to get fuel, I met two students about my age, who I asked about a place to sleep. They seized the opportunity to help, and took me to a public garden to sleep. I was thrilled to make friends so quickly. A beautifully maintained park with fountains, neat flower beds would have been a grand place to sleep but the security guard said the police would clear me off if I slept there. I looked as needy as possible. I didn’t want my friends to leave me at eleven o’clock at night in a Tehran suburb without knowing the city at all. My host, after a phone call to his dad said it would be ok to sleep on the roof of his flats and thus I found myself eating traditional Iranian food next to my tent on a dusty roof of an apartment block overlooking the lights of the city of Tehran.

I stayed on the roof for 3 nights. I went roller skating as one of my hosts was a roller skating coach. Tom and Tenny arrived in town, and we had an interview at a glossy Iranian travel magazine and met the editor of the biggest newspaper in Tehran and one of the leading environmental scientists to get some interesting insights into his thoughts on the effects of climate change in Iran.

After a couple of days I left them for another Couchsurfing Host, my friend Karim who hosted me for 1.5 weeks whilst I waited for my Indian visa. We got on like a house of fire, having rambling conversations about just about anything but particularly cycle touring and future adventures. He himself had cycled from Tehran to Scotland. His mum was Scottish and dad Iranian. His dad had worked in construction, building roads in South Iran. He was also an incredible cook, and I was treated to daily feasts of delicious rice, bowls of osh (chickpea soup), and chello kebab - Iranian cuisine. Karim also had the coldest swimming pool I’ve ever experienced in which it was practically impossible to swim more than ten lengths. No matter how hard I swam I ended up shivvering. It must be very refreshing in the mid-summer but I was there in October 2008 and it was starting to cool down. I felt a little too comfortable at Karim’s, making a good friend very quickly. I knew it would be difficult to leave.

Karim and I took a bike ride up to the mountains above Tehran. Big dry reddish coloured hills. I felt attracted to them like a magnet. I have an urge to go back their again even now (mountains and nothingness = intrigue). We ventured back down into the city of bustling people, cars, cool, neat, exotic, different but still dusty and citylike.

The ride out of Tehran was a leap into the unknown for me. I had been killing myself worrying about the crossing to Iran to Pakistan and the perceived danger of Southern Iran. Now I was actually making tracks towards that point. And it didn’t feel that bad. Life was carrying on. No groups of terrorists emerged from the desert. No one tortured me because I was English. No Americans bombed me or water-boarded me. I didn’t die of thirst or starvation. I did managed to cycle huge distances through ghostly plains on the edge of the Dasht-e Kavir desert.

I cycled past the religious city of Qom and on to Isfahan. On the way I stayed with a family in a town call Meshikat. I asked for a place to camp and was taken into their family home for the night. I was sat down in the big living room with light blue walls on carpets, cushions positioned against the walls round the room. The extended family lived there.I was shown the carpet weaving process in the garage. The completed carpet would sell for $500. I met all the of the family, sat and drank chay and ate more delicious food. At prayer time my hosts prayed. The women of the family prepared food in the kitchen and only showed up for sleeping. I managed to get in a thank you in a sort of shuffling, embarrassed way when one was hastily passing through the living room. I slept on the carpet under sheets with a pillow in luxurious comfort. The family had a collection of pigeons on the roof in two big cages which they bred to sell. It was strange to be invited up to the roof and then see cages of pigeons which most people regard in England as flying vermin. At first I thought they were for eating but pigeon breeding is an Iranian traditional. For example the Iranian Highflying Tumbler is bread for endurance flying competitions.

The Iranian people were always very helpful and hospitable. They would say it was part of the Iranian culture and it is but perhaps it is so strong because of the history of nomadic peoples in Iran when being nice to strangers was a survival skill to see if the nomad had anything you needed. Likewise if you were a travelling nomad and needed help you would hope for the same treatment in return. Perhaps the hospitality in Iran is more pronounced because the environment is more unforgiving meaning that the people needed each other more to survive.

The emptiness of the desert spaces was in it’s way beautiful, nothing to distract, nothing man-made, no input, very meditative. The only thing created in my own head was long trains of thought which I became quite fond of and recorded into my dictaphone. My bike was set up really well and I had a strong feeling of flowing with little effort, completing long distances. In fact I was putting in a huge amount of effort but it became the norm to start early, put in a long day, push big gears and I started planning when I would be at the next place based on 150km days.

I arrived an Isfahan pedalling along a long urban street, tussling with traffic, and reached the Zayandeh river. I was presented with the Si-o-se Pol bridge. A stunning sight illuminated in the dusk light, buzzing with people. I grinned a huge grin to myself that I was there and by bicycle and thanked myself for continuing my bike adventure.

I met Couchsurfing friend Sharim and stayed with him and student flat mates including Omid whose parents were visiting. We went for a night walk along the river side. A beautiful city. Isfahan is soaked with history and culture. People are continuously wandering over the bridge, meeting, taking photos, gazing and enjoying the atmosphere. We walked along to the Khaju bridge, there were a group of people singing but my friend wasn’t keen to hang around as the police had been stopping people from singing old songs which weren’t in line with the current regime.

The following day I took a trip to the Hasht Behesht. A palace from the Safavid era, and the Jame Mosque. Although I didn’t get in to the mosque because they were just closing for prayer, I did get a glimpse of the big court area. The beauty of some mosques in Iran was awe inspiring, I found to be incomparable to anything else I’ve seen. Some seem to reach a logical conclusion of an idea and design, close to perfection. With greenery and water fountains within the dry, arid mountains and deserts, the mosques seem to appeal to a base instinct which adds to their attraction.

The government in Iran seemed to occupy a strange place in the minds of the people. People didn’t seem particularly decisive about whether the existing regime was good or not. The people I was in contact with, had differing opinions, some seemed happy to go along with things as they were, some seemed strongly against the rules but going through the motions as best they can.

There was a strong sense of culture and history and a strong will to protect that. Anyhow that was what represented the true identity of the country. A legacy of history too long and rich to be hidden by one modern period of history. There was a feeling that the current regime was only a temporary thing and would most likely be in flux anyway. People seemed to choose to deal with whatever was presented to them as best as possible. These are just feelings that I came away with and based on conversations with people I met.

After Isfahan the landscape between the big cities was bare and remote. I choose to take the highway because I had an urge to make progress. The roads were extremely good quality. I went through the city of Yazd. After cycling a whopping distance and being towed the last thirty kilometres by a guy and his girlfriend on a motorbike, I arrived at a big mosque on the outskirts of the town. Happy, excited, exhausted and thrilled. The mosque was an oasis of beauty, light, calm and peaceful. I asked about accomodation, and after first being given a spot in a gravel car park to sleep ended up with a fine room in the residential accomodation of the mosque.

The next day I couldn’t find a Couchsurfer but met a stone mason working on a mosque who ended up inviting me back to his house and showing me his workshop where I saw a range of white marble sculpted items including huge water basins, and fountains for a mosque. In his home, I couldn’t see his wife because she was always hiding under a full veil. His daughter was training to be an architect and was at university. He was a very conservative man who I got the impression liked to know that everything was in it’s place and just so, but at the same time he saw something interesting in me. Perhaps he respected the sense of adventure, self-reliance and independence and wanted those qualities in his younger son. I like to think he perhaps dreamed of travel and adventure.We shared a mutual cultural curiousity I think.

I met up with another Couchsurfer in the centre of the city and went to see the Zurkhaneh. A national sport of Iran. A basement room that felt like I was going to watch a sweaty, seedy backstreet cockfight or something (not that I would know how that felt). The main pit where the exercise occurred was sunk into the ground with a wooden floor. Foreigners and other spectators sat around the edge. Foreign women sat with headscarves half falling off self-consciously. There was a bus- load of grey-haired Europeans sitting looking bored, and weary round the edge of the ring, amongst other travellers and locals.

The men gathered in the pit and first they did a long warm up of various stretches, and exercises. It went on for ages and looked exhausting. Just as all the men were starting to look thoroughly sweaty out came huge wooden clubs, shaped like traffic cones, which were swung up and down in rhythm with a drum that changed pace. This process is called Pahlevan. There was a ‘DJ’ of sorts called a Morshed . A young man sitting in a DJ booth above the ring organising the timing of each exercise and the rhythm. It was a little bit boring to watch, and smelly. It was weird that people came to see a bunch of circa forty year old Iranian men getting wheezy, but then it was in the guide book and it does have a more interesting history.

I then visited Kerman and stayed with another Couchsurfer for a couple of nights. I visited a local market and cycled around observing the daily life of people. I watched a man hit a motorcyclist and an ensuing argument take place. Neither was seriously injured luckily. The further south I went, the more interesting things were. The culture was more alien, people tended to notice me more, and it felt more wild and unknown. I felt torn all the time between an urge to move on and an urge to hang around and gaze, watch people, make notes, write, and take pictures.

On the way to Bam the last big settlement before the Pakistan border, I stayed with the Iranian Red Crescent, the roadside emergency medical aid service. They took me to see a huge caravansary which had been renovated and now was in a traditional style of luxurious Persian. Circular outer walls and octagonal inner spaces, surrounding a central courtyard and fountain, rooms around the edge, for eating, sleeping, drinking tea, relaxing, and smoking nargile. It felt like I had been transported back a couple of hundred years. The things spoiling my authentic experience were the bus load of European tourists in western clothes, probably unable to fully enjoy the experience because they were too worried about if they could afford the price tag of staying there. The proprietor of the place invited me to stay there but I chose to stay with my friends in their roadside caravan instead where I ate a chicken biriani-style dish.

I previously wrote a reasonably decent blog post on my experiences from Bam onwards so I will leave you to read on. To get into the real grit of my experiences of Iran you will have to wait until I write up the second book of the journey from my diary and do something with the audio recordings and String Films do something with the film. Feel free to lobby them at their website http://www.stringfilms.com. I am presently at 130k words of the first book from England to Georgia after a minor set back losing about 15k words (my own stupid fault+nightmare=probably better written the second time around anyway). I’m going to write a blog post similar to this about Pakistan and I also have one to write about a trip I made to a Leprosy home in New Delhi and an interview I did with the founder. All to come, thanks for reading.

The Caldera is a delightful looking frame with big welded gussets for strength and a fancy hydroformed downtube that magically metamorphosises from a cyclindrical shape to a cuboid shape between the bottom bracket and the headtube. This not only looks and feels strong but I expect it is too.

The paint job is deep blood red so the blood won’t show up on the frame which is great for cleaning purposes. Red is more versatile than white which would start to look dirty so quickly. I’d spend all my time cleaning it and not riding it (unlikely) .

When one hold’s it up and feels the paintwork under the palm of the hand, it’s akin to putting one’s hands into an ice cold mountain stream. No doubt this will make your ride flow like water.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.”

“If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you”

“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

-Bruce Lee

Kona have managed to combine water and steel using secret technology in order to maximise your ride.

The frame is incredibly light considering it’s beefiness and looks like it would eat rocks, pedestrians and curry for breakfast.

As soon as I got it, I spent a good amount of time getting to know it as you can see we have started to bond well, which is very important. (I haven’t shown these photos to Fanny yet). I will make sure I wear my helmet when I do.

Surprisingly the frame has rack mounts ready for my touring rack when I make the transition from mountain biking to touring again. The Explosif lacked these, but it wasn’t a problem because the excellent ‘fit-it-and-forget-about-it’ Tubus rear rack has the availability of a clamp system which works just as well, if not better.

The rear-triangle tubes on the frame are tantalisingly and sumptuously curvy. The hose guides are finished very neatly as are the Disk brake mounts. There is the ’standard’ replaceable rear dropout incase it gets damaged.

Many cycle tourists I met were on aluminium frames and getting on fine. It will be interesting to use my new aluminium frame to see how it fares compared to the steel Explosif. The Caldera frame is Kona’s top of the range hardcore backcountry hardtail mountain bike frame and should fare very well.

Steel frames offer more ‘give’ so should in theory be more comfortable to ride over a long distance, but that also depends on the design of the frame.

So the heat is on. Aluminium versus Steel frames for touring? Is the ability to fix a steel frame at a village welder the only notable (but obviously very important for back of beyond touring) benefit? Watch this space.

In the mean time why not check out Konaworld.com. Or check out our sponsors pages for more information about our gear.

I’m at home now in the UK. I spent April, May and June in Tbilisi. My time has been split up between organising work and research, mountain biking, and everyday life in the city.

There were the demonstrations in Tbilisi against Saakashvili about the state of the economy and the war with Russia that he lead the Georgians into last year. Improbably, a famous Georgian singer came up with the idea to create welded steel framed cubes covered in white canvas with numbers on them e.g. ‘cell 150′. People then lived in the cells for 2 months and over the course of a week they appeared up all over the city. The most were around the parliament building on Rustaveli Street and in the area of Saburtalo.

They blocked the streets and thus the main streets in the city centre were completely car free. I thought this was great. It was much calmer without cars, less polluted, and you didn’t have to worry about dying crossing the 3 lane main road or the crazy carousel that is freedom square at rush hour. Instead the population was presented with a near Idyllic city centre area of people strolling about happily, eating ice cream, chatting, men sitting outside their cells playing cards, children playing and one heartwarming moment I saw was a dad teaching his son to ride a bike in the middle of the recently closed road.

It was a logical progression forward undeniably improving things. However, I’m sure this episode of inadvertant environmental enlightenment will be swept up under the carpet and go unnoticed. I hope otherwise. I spoke to many people who thought it was an improvement and I mentioned it at a presentation I gave at last week - more about that later.

Saakashvili has cleverly dealt with the demonstrators, doing nothing for 2 months (reportedly he was seen on a yacht on the black sea on holiday). After a few days of feather-ruffling between the parties, a meeting was arranged between the president and the opposition. Gradually things calmed down with only a couple of hiccups of police clashing with protestors on a minor scale.

Quietly Saakashvili’s cronies have been removing the cells around the city as people got bored and complacent with the whole thing and now it’s down to a few cells outside the parliament. The stage was still there was I left two weeks ago and there were still talks and speeches going on. The saga continues.

I’ve been dedicating a lot of time to my passion for mountain biking. It became very clear to me, whilst meditating on my bike in India, that I should help to start a cycling project in Tbilisi. Georgia is perfect for mountain biking with wonderful countryside and many mountain-bikeable paths and of course the culture, food, drink and friendly people. Tbilisi, as a city has excellent mountain biking within a 5 minute cycle from the city (could be less if you already live up the hill!). The population seems to be open minded on the subject of cycling and I’ve seen an exponential increase in cyclists since I was in Georgia last year.

I wanted to refine my passion for cycling down to it’s mountain biking core. I have the opportunity to follow my passion, be part of a community of riders and help to develop the scene in Georgia and Tbilisi, offering my experience, minor celebrity status and website skills.

Through a friend, I met David and Merabi, two serious and very good mountain bikers in Tbilisi and organised to go riding with them. I’ve been going with them pretty much every week since, and discovered some brilliant trails- crazily enough my bike is still holding out, after riding 15,500km, I’m now riding it over technical rocky trails.

Even more crazy is the fact that the breakage on my frame (which snapped in Delhi and I got immediately welded up by the omnipresent Indian welding contingency). It’s still holding strong! Kona are supplying me with a new frame - a 2008 Kona Caldera which is their top of the range aluminium mountain bike hard-tail frame. I concluded that even though steel is the ideal material, most tourers I met were actually using aluminium frames through ignorance or the increased availability, with no problems at all.

The website I created for mountain biking in Georgia is http://www.mountainbiking.ge. It is a service ran by my Georgian friends offering mountain bike holidays in Georgia as well as guide, bike hire, and purchase. In addition it is a social portal with a forum, blog and flickr gallery- and will no doubt develop in the future. I am constructing GPS routes available for download on there and want to create a collaborative application for that so people can upload their own routes. There have been a huge number of hits on the website already and many people interested.

David and Merabi went riding with one of the first guests a few weeks back, a Philippine lady who was staying at the Marriot (paying $300 per night). She got way more than her money’s worth, and rode from 8 am to 6 pm, an epic all-dayer, and had a stonking time by the looks of the photos. Merabi and David are both kind, friendly and very experienced bikers, not short of a few stories to tell. They are both originally from deep in the mountains, from the village of Gudauri, where there is the popular ski resort in Georgia. They are the first people to take mountain bikes over the mountains in this area, and the photos are stunning from their experiences. I think the next Lord of the Rings should be filmed in Georgia.

We are planning to make a race in October, inviting anyone to come and race round a course on the mountain next to Tbilisi and hopefully find a sponsor to stump up a prize and some banners, and food for the riders.

The weather in Tbilisi over the last 2 months has been bizarre to say the least. When Tom and I arrived in Georgia in Winter of 2008, it was the coldest winter for 30 years and I would hazard a guess that it’s probably been the wettest summer ever! There were, violent thunderstorms practically every day for 2 months. I experienced the full brunt of these sometimes seemingly instantaneous events with vast quantities of water falling from the sky.

I was talking on the internet to Mark saying ‘this storm is crazy, I’ve never seen such as volume of water so quickly’ and Mark said ‘wow, that must be amazing’ which coincided with a capitalised swear word written in reply to mark ‘**** my bedroom roof has just fallen in!!!, and Mark’s response ‘****, are you alright mate?’ after which I ran in and tried to salvage everything including the furniture, which somehow through adrenalin, I managed to move all of (a chest of drawers, wardrobe and bed) out of the room in about 2 minutes. After the landlord and I had sorted the whole mess out and it had finished being redecorated a few weeks ago I could barely move the wardrobe back because of it’s weight. It took me about 30 minutes of straining in the heat.

The weather has been clear and fresh in the morning, progressively getting hazier and culminating in a muggy heavy afternoon. Around 5/6 pm a familiar earth shakeningly loud clap of thunder could be heard reverberating around the Tbilisi valley, and not long after, huge torrents of rain turning the streets into veritable rivers of silt and dirty water. This is a serious problem. People died caught in these storms. Some of the old houses aren’t in a state to deal with that kind of weather (such as mine), people aren’t used to driving in the wet and don’t slow down much, and it caused flooding because of inadequate drainage systems.

I made a presentation on the 1st July at a CENN (Caucasus Environment NGO Network) organised ‘Climate Cafe’ in the New Art Cafe in Tbilisi. It was an informal event to raise discussion about climate change, what the people of Georgia think about it, what part they play in the solution and what standpoint to come at the problem from. Through my presentation I wanted to introduce my cycle adventure so far, present some clear facts about accelerated climate change and explain why cycling is such a logical and practical mode of transport for a city.

Tbilisi is ideal for an increased use of bicycles because it’s actually quite a small city and most of the main areas are easy to navigate to. Basically it’s better to be on a bike for 20 mins than sitting in traffic for 2 hours and the ’status-symbol’ 4×4s are pointless in the city. Although useful on some of the destroyed high mountain roads (probably better to take donkeys). I also got the opportunity to talk about the effects of climate change that we witnessed whilst cycling, the project for which we got sponsored by the WWF. It was nice to see something tangible come of that.

I put a considerable amount of effort into the presentation and crafted it down, getting inspiration from the TED lectures, Paul Deegan’s, and Ben Saunder’s public speaking which I have admired since I first saw them in person at Explore 2007.

I:

• Kept text to a minimum
• Used plenty of photos
• Used exciting music and a short impactful photo slideshow
• Kept my deliverance clear, succint, earnest, energetic, with emphasis where necessary
• Tried to weave in interesting anecdotes and (short) stories where possible

It appeared to go down very well and I’ve been invited to make presentations at schools in the winter when I get back to Tbilisi. It was an excellent opportunity for me to develop a slideshow and presentation for public speaking which I can use to promote my environmental concerns and journey wherever I get the opportunity. One unexpected challenge was being patient after every slide as a chap translated it into Georgian for the non-English speakers.

It was a huge rush to talk and I loved it. I think it was a reasonable success for the 1st attempt although there’s a fair amount I could improve. Many people seemed inspired by bikes, acknowledged (and seemed already quite knowledgeable about) climate change and there is going to be a follow up story a special eco-edition of the popular ‘Hot Chocolate’ culture magazine which is circulated in Tbilisi.

I filmed it so I will be putting it up on Youtube in due course.

In addition there were some Swiss motorbikers, riding from Beijing to Istanbul. They were also promoting awareness of climate change, aware that motorbikes are not zero emissions they were carbon-offsetting their trip and using the lowest emission motorbikes possible. I took the positive aspect that at least they had a strong conscience to to something about reducing their impact.

Obviously having flown myself, and felt that I had little choice other than to do that, I understand that the infrastructure isn’t there yet (in terms of bureacracy) meaning that there is sometimes a last resort compromise made (well I choose that in my case. My philosophy is still that flying is a last resort for travel). I personally believe that if you are going to seriously carbon-offset an expedition, you should know exactly where the money from the carbon credits is going and make sure it is effective.

I think that sometimes the benefits on the people of the travel perhaps outweighs the negatives of if they had stayed at home and burnt the carbon emissions from their home. Travel is the greatest lesson anyone can take to further their awareness of the reality of the world. They were good guys, intelligent and realistic, if a little jaded from long hours on the bikes. Listening to their experiences, trying not to compare them to mine, I still feel convinced that bike travel is unparalleled travel experience other than walking (or possibly skiing) which are different (non-ball)games altogether anyway.

Since I started travelling I have been unable to avoid making any excuse to half-arse my creative projects. In the past I’ve done a lot of creative artwork, and design and I used to be disorganised with it, but now I’ve organised everything with the aim of moving forward. I don’t half-do things or let myself get distracted. I concentrate on doing things meticulously, setting solid uninterpreted blocks of time to do things and being aware in each moment whether what I’m doing is productive with my overall goals.

I’ve looked to the methods of GTD and elements of Timoty Ferriss’ 4HWW (Four Hour Work Week) Amazon Link - The 4-hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
(which I think is great but can be improved upon a lot- a lot of it is based on GTD (getting things done) Amazon Link -Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity
methods on first glance. Funnily enough also based heavily on lateral thinking) Amazon link - Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity. The GTD methodology is based on Steven R Covey’s - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Amazon Link - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
which I heard first time around and was very impressed by. What impresses me about GTD is that is helps you to deal with the information overload we are faced with with the internet and, if we get lazy, from Facebook, gmail and a million other similar websites that add the danger of timewasting and stress of procrastination which is an entirely new phenomena. If you’re interested you can watch the video of Dave Allen (the creator of GTD) speaking at Google.

I’ve created my design portfolio at: http://www.andrewwelch.info. I’ve organised all the music I’ve made which was just sitting on a dusty hard disk together and put it at http://andrew-welch-music.blogspot.com and I’ve relaunched my Truefocus tee shirt and art project at http://www.zazzle.com/truefocus* (so make sure you get your birthday and Christmas presents from there- or perhaps just treat yourself!). I have organised all of my photos quickly using Picasa 3- an astonishing piece of software allowing me to get onto the important task of picking the very best ones. I looked at some of the photos with my friend Aurilien who is an experienced photographer on the journey home and I find it a lot easier to be really self-critical when I’m looking at the photos with someone who I respect a lot and knows his profession.

Which brings me onto how I got back to the UK. I caught a bus full of 18 year old Georgian Folklore dancers all the way back to Lyon in France via Turkey, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and France. We spent a day in Venice and went swimming in the sea in Greece which made a welcome break from sleeping on the bus seven nights in a row!!! I must say a huge thank you to Zaal and Aurillien for their kindness, taking me on the bus.

Finally I was unsure how I would feel about being at home again, but this time it’s easier as I’m a lot more flexible and I did the travel back last year too. It’s wonderful to see friends and family at home. I will be here for 3 weeks and then I’m heading again to France for 1 month and then back to Georgia in time for Tommy’s wedding- I’ve still got to come up the Speech! Eek! (any ideas?)

I’m now 55,000 words into my book’s first draft and I’ve learnt a few things which I thought I’d share:

1. Get up early in the morning to write. e.g. 6 am. I tried writing late at night and got into a counter-productive routine of falling asleep at 10.30 pm, waking up at 2 am and working for a couple of hours - maybe that’s your ideal time to write. But I’ve found the morning to be best for me.
2. Give yourself the chance to write the ‘crap first draft’. I was listening to a podcast by Merlin from 43folders.com. Talking about productivity + being afraid of not having the ability to succeed he spoke of an author who always gives herself this chance, and then from that she might craft it down and only use a tiny fraction of the original draft, but in order to get it all out she doesn’t restrict herself. No matter what you will write, you’ll have to go back and do lot’s of crafting and editing.
3. Keep a really tidy workplace - with good lighting, no distractions (and no alternative things that can easily be ventured into).
4. Music. I’m very fussy with what I listen to when I write. Some things have been working and some not. For example, Chopin’s piano sonata’s, Vangelis’s soundtrack to Antarctica, Igor Stravinsky- The Firebird, Mike Oldfield’s Music of the Spheres is perfect and Hans Zimmer’s The Last Samurai soundtrack. If it goes a little bit too epic, cheesy, choral, floral, frenetic, catchy or whatever then it starts to be distracting.
5. Read, read, read. I’m presently reading A Walk in the Mountains of Georgia by Tony Anderson.
6. Take notes and keep a detailed journal whilst you travel. I kept a journal throughout my journey so far. It’s been absolutely vital for remembering details. From reading it back, it triggers further memories, and I’m able to weave the storyline. It’s an incredibly rewarding experience as I am able to research further into stories and information I noted at the time- like retracing the route.
7. Look at photos and video. I took a lot of photos so far and the podcasts that were produced at the beginning were brilliant for taking me right back to the moment and what I was thinking and feeling. They have been very useful for writing. After all, a picture tells a thousand words.
8. Don’t try to do too much at once. I write for a maximum of 2.5 hours. I’m normally writing from 6.30am to 8.30am. But it depends on the individual.
9. A rest is good. Sometimes it’s good to take a couple of days off and come back to your writing really refreshed and enthusiastic.
10. Sometimes its good to plough on. On the contrary, I find it sometimes good to force myself to keep writing, because sometimes you might be being over critical, over analysing. For me, it takes me a short while to get into the zone, so I try to suspend judgement and keep writing until I’m sure I am going to stop.

One more:

I drink tea, not coffee. I drink coffee for websites. Drinking tea is more calming. I don’t want my thoughts bouncing around like a pinball machine when I’m trying to string them out on the page.

I looked into travel through Tibet which sounded wonderful. I have always wanted to go there and read stories of people cycling through. However, that was a few year ago when the situation was different. With the tensions with China at the moment and the Dalai Lama’s birthday happening China decided to close Tibet to foreigners from Nepal until the end of April.

I still looked into the visa and discovered that it takes 7 days to get a group visa, most commercial tours are extremely expensive, and the cost of trains (because I wouldn’t be able to travel fast enough by bike to exit China on the 15 day visa) would blow my budget. I emailed the travel company that runs the train from Urumqi to Kazakhstan which only goes once a week and because of govt regs they have been forbidden to sell tickets on the internet and they can now only be obtained in Lhasa. So if I didn’t time the travel just right then I might not have been able to get from Kathmandu to Lhasa (8 days) then from Lhasa to Almaty (at least 5 days travel with arriving just on time for the next train).

I was faced with making a decision quickly because my Indian visa was to expire in 7 days. I received information that finding a flight in Islambad would be more expensive and less reliable, so I took the decision to fly.

I am extremely happy to have travelled to India and the whole experience has been invaluable and changed me as a person. I embarked on the adventure with as much information as possible about future travel plans, a positive spirit, spontaneity and hunger to continue to learn about myself and the world.

I flew out the next morning. My wonderful couchsurfing hosts Navneet and Priya were sad that I was suddenly leaving so soon and it was very sad to leave them as they had become friends. We celebrated by consuming the most delicious Keralan fish curry feast I’ve even eaten - I can still taste it now (my my…).

I flew by Turkish airlines. It was exciting to suddenly be taking a mode of transport that I had previously near completely ruled out. The process of taking an aircraft to fly there seemed more realistic than previous times I’d taken a flight in the past. I felt more aware of the reality of the plane, engine, burning the fuel and the physics of flight rather than a blindfolded process of being one place one minute and a few hours later somewhere else. I went over my overland bicycle travel to get to India in my mind and thought of the mountains in Iran, the markets in Pakistan and flashed through a plethora of memories. I feel my mind and eyes are more open to the world around me since I began travelling.

On the aircraft, the gentleman sitting on my left was an Afghan man who had left Afghanistan 10 years ago to live and work in Germany with his family. I chatted to him about my plans and he was very friendly. He wished that the problems could be sorted out and his country could be in peace again.

I ate neatly packaged aeroplane food and I watched the new James Bond film on the TV in the back of the seat which also had a gps map so I could see where the plane was in Google Earth.

The gentleman sitting on the right of me was a Punjabi man who when the plane took off and landed become quite unnerved and had a panic attack grabbing onto the seat in front, fidgeting around, whispering ‘why, why, why?’. On landing all the TV’s changed to a video image from a camera on the front of the plane so you could see what the pilots saw when landing. It didn’t help the disposition of the Indian man at all who covered it up with his hands and desperately tried to find a button to turn it off but the option wasn’t available.

I arrived in Istanbul and caught a taxi to the bus station and a bus back to Tbilisi. It felt strange to see the infrastructure of Istanbul with it’s clean buildings and developed roads roads free of cows, dirt, rubbish, and people. I could close my eyes and I could still see India.

However, I was still incredibly happy to travel back to Tbilisi and arrived after a 26 hour bus journey to cycle to meet Fanny in Pushkin square next to Freedom square in the centre of Tbilisi. I got a puncture cycling there on the way and journalist intercepted me and asked me some questions for a newspaper article!

I arrived into the flat and since then I’ve been in Georgia. I will keep you posted on my plans which will involve fixing my bike, sorting Fanny out with equipment to travel by bike, organising my photos, writing a book, teaching English and technology, finding website work, and hopefully developing and enjoying mountain biking in Georgia.

Fanny and I back in Tbilisi and the demonstrations in front of the Parliament building.

A word cloud of my recent delicious bookmarks - illustrating plans and thoughts for the moment.

Already looking at the globe again.

Whilst in Delhi I created a piece of artwork which is inspired by my disposition after failing to get the Iran visa:

So I’m working on splitting things up so that Ride Earth is just about cycle touring / mountain biking and things cycling and travel related. I’ll include reports that happen about where I’m living like the demonstrations in Tbilisi for example.

Stuff to do with web design and graphics I’m considering moving to a separate blog and flickr account. There are positive and negative sides to splitting things up. On the positive, I hoping that when people come to Ride Earth expecting to read about cycle adventures, then that what they’ll get. On the negative side, my Ride Earth blog is my life for the last 2 years and everything that my life has entailed, so things seem to naturally overlap.

Ride Earth has been about creativity. Creating a website, photos, film, a line on a gps, thoughts and experiences in my life, friendships and relationships, music and stories.

Fanny and I are planning to continue travelling but it won’t be for some time. However in the mean time, we are preparing slowly to build up to that time. I’ll keep you updated with that on here and also posts to do with writing a book about the journey so far.

These metal framed cuboids covered in plastic sheeting are housing protesters claiming the president Saakashvili has been wrongly imprisoning people. When I took photos some people were still sleeping on makeshift beds inside the symbolic cells.

I was pleased to see my photos validated by the website and they appeared on the front page getting lots of exposure!  The link to my story is here.