10,000 km, Hue and Hoi An, and the Monsoon Strengthens

Challenging the Macedonians and Turks for World's Biggest Flag

The Imperial Enclosure within the Citadel in Hue, home to Emperors, Eunuchs and Concubines

Very hungry fish at the Citadel - great idea of the employee to give them the plastic bag that the food came in to eat as well

Crafts- and tradesmen are still rebuilding and replicating the Citadel after it suffered heavy bombing by the Americans

Chinese influence at the tomb of Khai Dinh - the Chinese alphabet only stopped being used in the country last century, a change that helped Vietnam become almost entirely literate

These guys knew how to grow a beard, though weirdly mine gets so much attention and most of the population seem unable to cultivate even a 'tache

Paddy fields and mountains have been our accompaniment since Hanoi, though it wasn't until Danang that we had to climb over one

Look closely and you'll see the colour-coordinated figure of Georgie half-way up this 7 mile, 8%, 40° climb along the coast

A sweet old lady selling bananas? You want me to take your photo, and you want no money? OK. Click. And bam - photo money, buy bananas. Eeevil.

Someone enjoying solitude in the cramped and bustling market in Hue

6,200 miles for the British and American amongst us. I’ve been riding with my speedometer set to miles-per-hour since leaving the UK despite the fact that every sign post and distance marker has been in kilometers since getting off the ferry in mainland Europe. This involves a lot of mental arithmetic while riding and results in a far less impressed stranger when I show them how far I’ve ridden, and then try to explain it’s not, in fact (only a mere) 6,200 km.

While I’m on the subject, since being welded back in Switzerland after only 1/10^th of the current mileage the bike has held together impressively – I changed the chain and cassette back in Tehran, and the bottom bracket in Hanoi, and have done nothing but lube the chain since. Only 4 punctures and a handful of broken spokes despite carrying a bit too much weight and riding on some awful roads, as well as the freehub implosion – the abundance of sweat and humidity have rendered my leather handlebar tape a mould breeding ground but it’s nice to have the company.

So we’re currently somewhere in the vicinity of the site of the My Lai Massacre, where American soldiers killed 504 unarmed civillians before covering up the whole affair at every level, military and government. 42 years ago is very recent history. Could it happen today? I can’t help but wonder what all the toothless old ladies, straggly grey bearded old men and elderly amputees have seen, from Independence to colonisation to Independence again to starvation to war and an old age under communism. I wish we shared a language as there is so much I’d love to know and so few genuine sources to hear it from. Iran was such a special experience because the ability was there to ask questions and learn from the man and woman on the street. Despite apparently being on the increase as a second language, English at any deep level (i.e. deeper than those sentences dealing with financial transactions) seems very sparse and pretty much nonexistent outside of the tourist centres. I can’t even get people to understand my pronunciation of ‘bread’ so aside from the simplest of pleasantries my Vietnamese is never going to develop.

So a fun time was had playing the tourist in Hue, Vietnam’s old capital and ‘intellectual and cultural heart’. As always with these places it seems that the future has spoiled the past and history is covered up by snack foods and fashion – every second shop sells one or the other. We glimpsed some of the country’s varied past, from Emperors and their eunuchs and concubines to the Chinese, the French, independence, war, communism, theism and atheism. Does anyone remember the immolating Monk in the Sixties? We saw the car he drove to the site of his immolation in to protest about the repression of Buddhism in favour of Catholicism.

Georgie and I gave up our independence for a day to be lead around the city’s spread-out highlights, and while enjoying not having to find our own way for a change we both resented the lack of freedom. After 2 days we were ready to move on and take the short ride down to Hoi An. An incredibly pretty old trading town and home to no fewer than 200 tailors, out of approximately 250 businesses, with the other 50 being restaurants and hotels, or so it seemed. Chicken and the egg, Catch-22 – a place has a genuine reason for interest, people visit, people capitalise on those wanting to visit and before you know it the original reason to visit has been all but wiped out. Hoi An must have some kind of preservation society as things hadn’t run away too far, but strolling around the narrow streets of the Old Town while being serenaded by ‘hey you, come in my funky shop’ and the less refined but refreshingly upfront ‘BUY SOMETHING!?’ it was hard to get into the mind of a fellow doing the same a century and a half ago. Still, we made the most of these 21^st Century ruinations and enjoyed a hotel with a swimming pool, a ridiculously decadent chocolate tart and the best dinner I’ve ever had that wasn’t cooked by my Mum.

We’re now into the beach-focused leg of the trip and will hopefully spend a few days lounging on one of the many white-sand and clear-water beaches the southern coast has to offer, in between the bursts of monsoon rain that make the temperature plummet to a chilly 25 degrees C (can you imagine?) before hitting the chaos of HCMC which is currently 520 miles away.

My waving and helloing energy is seriously depleted so I hope the Cambodians are significantly less friendly or else I won't make it to Singapore! Adam, where are you when I need you?!

Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Cat Ba Island and South

The stereotypical image of Vietnam exists everywhere

Ha Long Bay - Nature vs. Tourism

Ha Long Bay's floating communities

...and their treatment of their environment.

Cat Ba Island, in Ha Long Bay, from the National Park

Georgie strolling to the beautiful beach

Assaf, Michael, Julita, Me and George. The bay and the Tonkin Gulf in the background

Only the Vietnamese can make riding these things look cool

Look closely and you'll see this family's living room and bedroom in this 'restaurant'. The child was later plonked naked on one of the tables. Life is certainly not lived behind closed doors in this part of the world.

Seafood and beer to follow sun and beach

The view from our $10 hotel room - watching the colour of the sky change at night was astounding

We've ridden past birds, dogs and pigs being transported by bike - not for the feint-hearted, but incredibly impressive nonetheless.

Tam Coc, the Ha Long Bay of the Rice Paddies - a nice 2 hour boat ride after a tough 68 mile bike ride

These ladies had a very impressive foot rowing technique

While I was taking this photo Georgie was trying to convince our rower/driver that we really didn't want to but any tablecloths thankyouverymuch, row on.

Week one back on the road down, along with 177 miles, in spite of the fact that where we sit now is only 56 miles from where we started. Georgie’s addition has made this feel like more of a holiday than a punishment, which it can feel like at times, so I happily rode 3 times the distance to take in Ha Long Bay (it is a World Heritage Site after all) and Cat Ba island. The chilling on the beach part is my forte, but the riding out of my way to get there isn’t.

Riding out of Hanoi was as hectic as expected but surprisingly manageable once you understand the concept: ride wherever the hell you want, just keep going in a straight line. Georgie did incredibly well considering it was her big Day 1 and she was an extra 3 feet long towing the trailer behind her. We navigated out of this small and friendly city having had a great introduction to Vietnam, and immediately hit the paddy field and bamboo hats that thoughts of the country conjure up. Ha Long bay was 2 days away at our gentle, introductory pace (gentle, that is, for me – Georgie was eager to carry on past the hotel at 42 miles but I wanted to get off my bike ASAP; the 7 weeks off (the longest I’ve been off a bike in the past 4 years) now seems like less of a wise move and my body is rebelling).

On arrival in Ha Long City, or in reality Bai Chay, which to the Lonely Planet writers is the same place but for us is a tiring 5 mile bridge crossing doubleback, we decided to do things independently rather than going for an organised 3 day trip, so the following day we kept everyone waiting whilst loading our 2 bikes and 8 bags and trailer onto the boat before cruising off into the bay for 4 hours, on the way to Cat Ba island. The scenery was expectedly spectacular and the notorious trash filling the water was less apparent, though clearly respect for the water isn’t on everyone’s minds (see image above).

The Vietnamese/tourist relationship can be strained at times. They’re enterprising people filling niches and servicing needs, but when there is money to be made their knack for telling you what you want to hear is second to none (giving truth to the ‘same same… but different’ SE Asian mantra). When booking the boat to the island, and handing over money, the distance from port to town was 15km, flat, along the highway. Upon arriving at the island, when buses were being booked, it had miraculously become 45km, and hilly. It turns out the latter was the closest to the truth. Following an hour or so of dirty tricks (locals telling the local, 15,000 dong/50p bus not to stop so we’d be forced to take the 700,000 dong/23 pound private one) and hardcore, righteous bartering courtesy of our newly made Israeli friend Assaf (no stereotypes please), 6 of us and 2 bikes piled in at a knock-down but still rip-off price of 2 pounds and 50p each. The road was long, mostly uphill, and certainly not a highway. If I ever meet that liar again I will be sure to let him know what a scoundrel he is.

This series of stresses behind us our new group of 6 had a great few days on Cat Ba island, sharing a hotel, hanging out on the beach together, eating together – to Assaf, Mick, Julita and Pavel, thanks for your company and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your trips.

I spent yet another day on a motorbike, this time a 125cc Yamaha scooter, the staple vehicle of Vietnam, riding through the stunning scenery of the National Park. Not the manliest of beasts, especially when twinned with a glittery fake Nike peaked helmet, but the feeling of cruising effortlessly at 25mph and zooming up hills was intoxicating. Next trip…

Fighting the feeling to stay on the island and spend another 7 weeks sitting on the beach, thanks as well to Georgie’s encouragement and eagerness to get more miles under her bum bag, we departed on the hydrofoil back to the mainland. Another 2 days of riding in ever increasing heat and intense sun has landed us up in Ninh Binh, a base to see Tam Coc – the Ha Long Bay of the Rice Paddies – and rest. This we did today, after a very tough afternoon of riding yesterday. Thinking I’d got yet another bout of food poisoning from the eggs/rice/fried insect/ice at lunch I felt increasingly ill and Georgie was leaving me in her wake. It seems bizarre but after spending weeks in the heat and the deserts through Turkey, Iran and India, the sun got the better of me in humid Vietnam and I had what I guess was heatstroke, to go nicely with my British tourist sunburn. Whether it’s the humidity or the nearing the equator I don’t know, but 42 degrees here is far more intense than the 42 degrees I’ve ridden in anywhere else.

This morning we spent 2 hours being rowed along a quiet river between limestone cliffs and through caves, a lovely way to counteract the previous day’s punishment.

Now Highway 1 is upon us and we follow it from here all the way down the coast to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as someone unfortunately renamed it. Our only concern in this very safe, easy country in which to travel is how long we can stomach the noodles and put up with the ridiculous worse-than-India beeping.

The Third Evolution

'Junction' is a word to be feared

Georgie in the rain at the Confucian Temple of Literature

From West to East, Churches turn into Mosques which turn into Temples

Ho Chi Minh's best bud, Lenin

How pavement badminton hasn't caught on in the UK I'll never know...

Life by the tracks in Central Hanoi

Scooters. So many scooters. Everywhere.

The green light stampede - Do Not Run!

Life is lived on the pavement. Walking is made harder.

So here we are. The moment that kept me riding onwards during some miserable days in Eastern Europe has arrived. Georgie is here! Taking her place as Riding East's second addition and beginning the 3rd distinct stage of the trip for me (Stage 1 being the two months riding solo from home to Istanbul; Stage 2, the three months riding across the Middle East with Adam), she'll be documenting things in her own way here. After more than 7 months apart things picked up pretty much where they left off as I met her at the airport - it felt like we'd only been apart for a week or 2. For those that know us, that also includes stresses and arguments - it'll take a few weeks to work each other out and develop the right tactics for dealing with life on the road, but with us that's half the fun.

Thanks to Georgie's arrival and expectedly high level of enthusiasm I've been a tourist in Hanoi after 2 weeks of avoiding it. Many miles have been walked and, being a pretty compact city, most of what's there to see has been seen - Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, though he's currently in Russia being cleaned; his Presidential palace adorned with photos of Marx and Lenin; the Confucian Temple of Literature, a university dating from the 11th century; a bunch of rockets and a Mig used to shoot down Americans in the '70s; the French Quarter; the Old Quarter where the real (though tourism-corrupted) Hanoi is, and Hoan Kiem lake and its temple complete with giant tortoise. Today was the day to apply for visas, so far just the Cambodian one at a bargain price of $20, and get back on the bike to test it our after 7 weeks off - my body finally felt at home for the first time since dismounting in Delhi on the 22nd July!

Tomorrow is Day 1 and our departure on the way to Ha Long Bay on the Tonkin Gulf coast. Both of us will need to ease in to the riding gently so the 100 miles or so will take 2 or 3 days which will give us a chance to asses what riding in Vietnam is like in terms of food, water, roads and accommodation, the situation with which is so different in every country.
I think we're both looking forward to it - stay tuned to see how it goes!

A Breath of Fresh Air - Hanoi

Big fat cheat Flight number 2 completed smoothly. Smoothly that is apart from the £200 excess baggage charge and the near run-in with immigration when it emerged my visa was scheduled to begin the day after I arrived. Thanks are due to the super-friendly Thai Airways check-in ladies, the lenient (i.e. couldn't care less) Vietnamese immigration staff, and the Kingfisher check-in guy for pretending I was only 10kg overweight, not 30. Another case of Iran being better than the rest - the lovely folks at Imam Khomeini International saw fit to charge not a penny for the same amount of stuff...

This is my first time in South East Asia, and my first impressions are good. From the airport in Bangkok and the streets of Hanoi there seems to be a pleasing overabundance of females, and a strikingly high percentage of stunningly beautiful ones. Elegantly riding bikes as well as the Danish, menacingly riding scooters with Burberry helmets, sitting on the street arranging flowers, cooking meat or noodles, or just smiling sweetly. They won't challenge the Persian beauty, but they'll come a close second.

Hanoi is a pretty crazy city (3.7 million people, 2 million motorbikes and scooters) but in spite of this it's sweet relief after the even crazier streets of Delhi. Here there is uniformity, which allows prediction and anticipation. And there are pavements without holes down into sewers. And no cows. Crossing the road is still a challenge though. The Hanoian technique is to assume a slow and deliberate stroll, allowing the shoal to navigate around you. The only Indian technique I ever mastered (aside from simply staying indoors) was to put my hand out confidently and run. The Iranian roads had lanes so could be crossed 7 feet at a time, usually with a panicked, sprinting finale.

So now I wait. Eight more days to pass before I get to hug the person I last hugged over 7 months ago. Then we ride, and I have my first day back on the bike for about 7 weeks, and Georgie the first of 4 months to come. I can't wait!

Six and a Half Months On The Road

• 193 days since home.
• 16 countries.
• 5,794 miles ridden.
• 74,198 metres climbed.
• 483 hours and 28 minutes of riding.
• 2 continents.
  
• 22 border crossings.
• 3 visas, 3 weeks of waiting.
  
• 29 nights of wild camping.
• 16 nights in people's houses.
• 84 nights in backpacker hostels.
• 61 nights in hotels.
• 3 nights on transport.
• 1 broken frame.
• 4 broken spokes.
• 1 broken freehub.
  
• 3 punctures.
• 4 mountain ranges.
  
• 10 jars of Nutella.
  
• 100s of cups of tea.
• 25 dog chases.
• 1 horse chase.
• Innumerable acts of kindness.
• 100s of people met, 10s of friends made.
• 6 kilos lost, 4 put back on.
• 13 other long-distance cyclists met.
• A handful of scary moments, a whole load more joyful ones.
• A 100% increase in faith in humankind.
• 10 cms of beard growth.

Fifty Days in India, 3 Weeks in Delhi

Riding through Delhi at night. Not recommended.

Riding through Delhi during the day. Not recommended.

Persistent questioners in monsoon rains.

Very wet and muddy.

Many miles passed under someone else's steam. It's not really cheating...

North India's version of the stinging nettle

The first sign of trouble up ahead, on the road to Manali

The ever-present watching men, no matter what you're doing, they're watching

Another nice spot for lunch

So far only 1 very narrowly missed cow - I think our weights are about equal

This is one of the cleaner eating establishments

Contrasty.

Everyone's Equal: Eating at the Golden Temple

Hey, how are you? I'm Kris. Where did you arrive from? Oh wow, how are you finding it? This must all be quite a shock for you! I remember leaving the airport last time I was in Delhi 4 years ago after flying in from Heathrow in 7 hours and being so overwhelmed. I've been here for 3 weeks now. I actually got here from Iran - no, well actually I've cycled here from London. Ha! No it's been great fun! Oh no, actually I mean bicycle, not motorbike!!! That's why it took 5 and a half months! Well I left my house in the UK on February the 15th and caught a ferry over to the Netherlands, then rode the whole way through Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Iran. Unfortunately I couldn't get a visa for Pakistan as they changed their rules after I left so I had to fly from Tehran to Amritsar. I spent a month riding up into the Himalayas as far as Manali and then down to here. Yeah, actually I left on my own but met another guy in Istanbul who was doing the same thing. Yeah! There are quite a few people doing what I'm doing, I've met at least 20 along the way. We split up from Delhi after 3 months together so now I'm back on my own. Up to now I've cycled 5794 miles - usually around 60 per day but as many as 106 and as few as 2. I'm pretty much doing nothing here in Delhi, just relaxing and enjoying the chance to socialise. I have a flight booked from here on the 27th August to Hanoi where I will meet up with my best friend from back home and then cycle with her down through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and then Australia and New Zealand. I'd initially planned to continue on from there to South America and make my way up and across to New York and then over to Africa, but having been away for nearly half a year now I can't envisage spending another 2 years on the road and riding 15,000 more miles - also I will have no money left by that point!

So what are you doing today? Ah yes, the Red Fort is nice...


So go most days in the Nirvana Hostel, South Delhi. The story exists more as a story than as reality for me now, I've told it so many times.

To those who have pestered me over the past month to write something on here, thank you for caring, and to those who have been checking in (or waiting for the RSS feed to update), I apologise for my lackadaisical approach. I suppose it's a combination a few things; after 178 days of doing this many things now seem unremarkable which would in the beginning have had me excitedly typing away in the nearest internet cafe. I think it's also India and the nature of travel here, in my case especially when contrasted against the time in Iran. I don't really feel like anything has happened that is worth recording, despite having done and seen what for most would be more than on a long holiday.

The biggest differences from day-to-day; you can't camp in Northern India. Between leaving town A and arriving in town B there is always a nether-town made up of tarpaulin shelters and charpoys, paddy fields and water buffaloes, dhaba food stalls, domestic tourist 'resorts', identikit crisp and fizzy drink shops, bizarrely named and iron-barred 'English Wine & Beer' shops, universities overlooking slums, or simply big piles of rubbish. Luckily India has its fair share of cheap hotels so a new routine was developed that removed the need to find food and water and a safe camp spot and instead involved shopping around for the perfect hotel room, for which exists a rather complicated equation involving the number of beds multiplied by the size of the TV and number of channels, divided by 2 for air conditioning or 4 for a fan, adding 100 for electricity to make these things work and subtracting 100 for no hot water, more than 2 flights of stairs, and anything that looked like it might lead to electrocution, illness or plague, whilst factoring in the lateness in the day and the tiredness and hunger levels, along with the level of tourist extortion attempted by the owner. Most of the time it was £2 and on all but 1 occasion, crap. Having gotten used to cycling off of the road and rolling down in to a field, transporting all my bags no more than 2 feet from the bike, setting up my tent, cooking as the sun sets and sleeping with the night, this added a headache while getting rid of a pleasure. And waking up in a double bed with another man night after night isn't as fun as it sounds (love you Adam).

Then there's the people. Iran received enough gushing positivity which I don't need to reiterate - I imagine any country would be a step down for the cycle tourist, but India is quite a stark change. It is fascinating for its diversity, and a thoroughly mesmerising, enchanting and just generally bizarre country, but for the specific needs of me on my bike it's not in the same league.
The initial welcome by the Sikhs of Punjab at the Golden Temple was remarkable, and the culture shock from seeing women riding motorbikes, working in the fields in multicoloured saris and showing off their long ponytails was intense - there is no easing in to India.
The cultural analysis between a Middle Eastern Islamic theocracy and a toddler Asian democracy is the stuff of text books, but basically I've experienced so little genuine kindness and so much blatant money grabbing as to sour the experience. I do believe that Hinduism has a part to play in this but that book is a long one. If you can break down the tourist/Indian barrier I'm sure there is a lot of kindness to be discovered.

After looking forward to cycling in India, I now have no desire to cycle here again. Once the crazy sights and sounds and smells of India lose their ability to amaze - a crew of cows chilling in the middle of the road, a gang of monkeys rampaging through a town, the goat/pig/car/elephant/cow/child/horse/camel/holy man that need to be avoided in every town, the sheer noisy chaos of every person beeping their horn - the enjoyment fails to sustain. I'm over it.

So for the past 3 or 4 weeks, since the 22nd July when Adam and I rolled through the gate of the Nirvana Hostel after 4 hours spent battling through Delhi's congested streets, I have chillaxed to the maximum. I've been to the mall. I've been to the movies. I've seen no tourist sights, no mosques, no markets (in my defence I saw them all 4 years ago). I've eaten almost exclusively western food but still managed to maintain an illness-to-wellness ratio of 1:1. I've stayed up till 6am more nights than ever before and drunk more rum then I ever will again. I've met some friends for life, and been offered some very glamorously located floors to sleep on. I've felt almost as at home here as at home. But step back out that gate and it's chaos, death and destruction in each direction. If you can walk down the street without falling in a steaming pile of trash, or a sewer, or walking into a cow, or getting hit by a rickshaw or bicycle, then you're doing well. I have realised at this point that I am Western, and European, and will always need some semblance of that around me.

So since last time...
I went to the Dalai Lama's 75th birthday party in his temple at Mcleod Ganj. That was fun. I've eaten numerous unidentified fried foods which have infected me with numerous bacteria and resulted in varying levels of diarrhoea. I've spent 2 nights vomiting. I've ridden up to 2000m and witnessed Adam make it to 4000m while I was, surprisingly, ill in bed. I've cycled in the monsoon, I've been handed beer from a moving motorbike and drunk it whilst riding, I've overtaken an elephant, I've enjoyed hours of long, swooping Himalayan mountain descents and pushed the tyres' grip to the limit. I've sweated more than I care to ever again. I watched the World Cup final in Manali where marijuana grows in hedges by the roadside. I've drunk Cognac and hung out with Delhiites, and met a handful of very lovely women. And of course I said goodbye to my riding buddy of 3 months, my wingman and copilot, the guy who made me feel lazy to just be riding my bike to get to places - you should ride it on your days off too! : P Adam valiantly battled on to Kolkata and is currently having some kind of empathy illness in Bangkok - good luck with the rest of the journey making it back to Oz.

So from now - the 30,000,000 Hindu Gods have conspired against me and so far foiled my 2 attempts to leave Delhi, this city I would actually say I hate, to see the more beachier parts of the country, one event involving me jumping very un-James Bond-like backwards from a moving train (top tip - always jump with the direction of travel); a train I'd waited for 5 hours to get on. Stick to bikes I told myself. I've decided to wait out my time in the safe confines of the hostel, being as lazy as I want to because hey, I've cycled here from London, even though all my friends have now moved on or home. On the 27th August I have a flight to Hanoi in Vietnam where I will wait for 10 days until my best friend from home Georgie lands with her bike to begin a 5 month trip through south-east Asia to Australia, with me. I think I'm a pretty lucky guy. Not to be promoting rival blogs but if you'd like to get a female perspective over the next few months (or just hear all the bad stuff about me) take a look at http://georgie-isabel-cycles.blogspot.com/

And the reason for flight number 2? The original route took in Nepal, Tibet and China. 1. Once out of India I'd be stuck for 2 months under their new rules, so any failure in Nepal would be an issue. 2. Independent travel in Tibet seems to be a near impossibility, especially after recent crackdowns. 3. I probably should have got my Chinese visa in the UK.

I'll definitely keep on top of this a lot better from now on, though between now and the flight my only tasks are to find a box for my bike, post home all my now-redundant winter clothing, and work my way through the 30 movies sitting on my laptop, whilst fighting off illness at every turn.

From Iran to India; Desert to Monsoon; Theocracy to Democracy

After traveling at 12 miles-per-hour for the past 4 and a half months, to suddenly eat up 1,376 miles at about 600 miles-per-hour was always going to leave me in a bit of a haze.
The boring but necessary logistical challenges all came off without a hitch; finding and then transporting a bike-sized cardboard box on the back of said bike; checking-in to a flight with 60 kg of stuff, 100% more than allowed; rebuilding the bike in the middle of an airport.

I now sit surrounded by Tibetan monks being looked over by the Dalai Lama rather than Ayatollahs and Imams Khamenei and Khomeini. Most people are Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist. The air is wet, my mouth doesn't get dry in 3 breaths. Everything is green, and in English, and people nod their head sideways. I've been soaked by early monsoon rains, and nearly expired climbing 400m vertically in 2 miles. I'm in McLeodganj, above Dharamsala, the home of the Tibetan government in exile. Last week I was in Tehran, the capital of an Islamic Republic. Fundamentally, through all the differences, the people are still people, most are still good. Everyone still bloody beeps.

My first ever ride on a motorbike - Royal Enfield, dirt road, Himalayas (concentrating)

Sun set at Mcllo

Golden Temple, Amritsar

Resting Sikh with dagger

Henna, Pakistan-India border (the closest we could get)

Crazy border closing ceremony, Wagah

The mud-brick streets of Yazd

Our desert hosts back in Iran

I must apologise for the briefness but beer and the World Cup (or preferably the Tour de France) await. More soon!