On the 6th of April 2005, cousins Jamie Mackenzie and Ben Wylson set off on their bikes on a journey which will take them to over 50 countries and to every one of the worlds great continents, all without the use of an aeroplane.
Monday, July 18, 2005: wall nuts
You may have noticed there have been some subtle changes to the website. Chris Porter -the man behind the original site- is on his travels, so has not been able to do much; he is in Thailand on a beach and quite rightly forgetting about things like websites. However, an old friend of Ben's, Guy Campbell, has taken on Chris's job as FWE web editor. Look out for Guy's marvellous additions:
1) A gallery section where you can view photographs. This section will be far more comprehensive as soon as we can recruit someone back at home to scan 8 films (36s) of photos.
2) It is now possible for you to read back over our adventures; Guy has archived the news section.
3) Our position on the earth's surface is now marked onto our map - see 'the route'
Guy is also working on a comments page so that you can leave your feedback as we progress and some flashy bits-and-bobs to give the site an even more professional touch.
Now, back to China...
We have been staying in the old residence of the Emperor's son, the place where the Mayor of Beijing himself lived only 10 years ago. There has been a strange haze shrouding the city which prevents strong sunlight from getting to us, but keeps the place hot and sticky; a waxy film covers the skin.
One morning we took the early bus to the Great Wall of China. We had expected the mist to have dissipated outside the centre of Beijing, but it was still there with the Wall. From the ramparts the mountains around were barely visible through it, their soft silhouettes seeping into our eyes, the mystical orient; tourists the only blemish.
The wall sits upon a ridge, stretching as far as the eye can see in both directions. It takes 20 minutes to reach it on foot climbing up a steep, winding path. After a severe sweat-inducing trek between the towers the question of descent is then raised... It takes 2 minutes to jump onto a big silver slide, a luge. If you can stall the tourists behind and allow the dawdlers up front long enough, you can hit the slippery beast as fast as a bobsleigh and really scare the officials, who fairly scream at you to slow down through loud-hailers as you bullet past. Everyone talks about the Great Wall, nobody talks about the slide on its side.
We met a New Zealander named Nicholas, a die-hard fellow who took the slide at lightning speed. As a result he won our respect. He's a 'spiggin awesome' fellow and we wish him all the best as he continues west. The next day Captain Nicholas steered our boat around the lake at the Summer Palace - a stacked up bunch of palacial buildings, nestled atop a hill and surrounded by the said water. He rammed peaceful tourists and families with glee, providing us with fiendish memories of shrill screams and frantic gesticulations. Donuts and chicken were played with vast passenger galleons, narrowly missing the dragon in the bows and scratching scales at the stern, much to the wide-eyed disbelief of the petrified passengers.
Jack has got himself a bike, a practical little number, 18 gears - that's more than us! He'll use it to head into the mountains with us tomorrow. It's silver and has a basket on the front, hope it will stay the pace. It only has to last two weeks, at which point a sad day will be with us, the day that Jack will have to depart, leaving for Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and then Lowestoft.
Unfortunately, several sites and attractions have been omitted from our stay in the People's Republic Capital city. We failed to view Mao, our would-be second pickled dead chap. He is, for reasons equally perplexing as Lenin, a highly measured fellow. Access is limited to those who make the entry gates before 7 o'clock. We are not of such early-bird ilk and tragically lost our opportunity. Always, we will be left wondering if the Mao wax work was of a more convincing form than its Russian counterpart.
So the next stage of FWE lies before us. We are on the threshold of a new and exciting era. The bikes are loaded, four thousand-metre passes lurk (nearly four times the height of Ben Nevis). What adventures await, what encounters, new folk and strangeness will unfold? Will our Thorn Ravens stay the pace? As ever, we'll roll with the tide, take the ups and downs in our stride and continue to live our uncompromising dream.
Life can be great...
Monday, July 11, 2005: no more mutton
At 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon the train came to its final resting point in Beijing station, China. It was the last stop of our trans-Siberian / trans-Mongolian journey and through our window we have witnessed the gradual transformation of Europe to Asia. It has been an amazing trip, one that has surpassed all expectations. Clearly I remember the painful days at base camp in Kent all those months ago, sweating over a computer, hanging on a phone, inquiring and researching. So many fallacies have been laid to rest and false information banished. Let it be known that Jack has made the entire crossing of the continents, from England to China on little over £150. In addition, the guards and carriage personnel have been courteous, polite and acted above and beyond their call of duty on many an occasion. The bikes, although cumbersome, have provided little concern and the fabled hardship of transporting them through China was simply not true. Indeed, they had their own carriage at the back of the train and were even
provided with their own guard.
Our expedition into the Gobi was a week that will never be forgotten. For seven full days we sped across the sands at lightning speed in the beige Russian jeep, guided skillfully by our driver Khoyga, over terrain that rattled our bones and delighted us no end. Sometimes the Jeep's four wheels left the ground altogether courtesy of lumps and bumps in the road only seen at the last second. Khoyga assured us he'd only ever flipped a car once before. Our cook and guide was the lovely Eenee; an eternally happy girl who had our every interest at heart and was a mine of information on all that we discovered. We slept in gers, forced from our tents by howling storms that rampaged across the desert plains. We were welcomed in by strange and wonderful folk, offered food and drink and shelter, their kind and weathered faces beaming smiles the day long.
Their culture is based entirely around the animals they herd; goats, sheep, horses, camels and Yaks in the west. Every thing they do, everything they eat, everything they are is consumed by the creatures they entertain. Curds, sheep's milk teas, mare's milk and of course the ever-available and nomadic favorite, Mutton. I fully admit that the latter was not enjoyed by FWE, the smell and taste conjuring images of the lambing sheds back home. It was a treat indeed, therefore, when on the penultimate night Eenee surprised us with delicate, sumptuous, tender morsels of fantastically sublime slithers of delectable beef.
Khoyga drove fast, the jeep held fast, Eenee cooked hot food every evening and provided breads, jams and the team's favorite: coffee as and when it was required. Come night fall the tents were thrown down in the most fantastic places imaginable: mountains, valleys, scrub and sand; we slept nights in all of them, stars twinkling bright, shooting stars flashing brilliant white across the horizon. At times it seemed there was more star than dark in the luminous, meditative skies above. The days moved by, one glorious adventure slipping serenely into the next. We rode camels around the flaming cliffs, galloped horses across grassy plains that rolled endlessly into the blue yonder on the horizon, shared snuff with the elders, saw birds and animals of such magical descriptions - and quite simply enjoyed the time of our lives.
Mongolia is said to be 'The land of Blue skies', and with good authority. It is a jewel of a country and FWE is eternally grateful to the inhabitants for their richness in hospitality and wealth of kindness. Many an evening the three of us would gather and discuss the day's events, revelling in the recognition of our fortunate situation; sharing beers and good company, we all agreed that life was pretty much perfect.
It is a blessing to leave a country before rot sets in, before the mind dictates that you are tired and in want of something new and even more fantastic. It was, therefore, with quiet satisfaction that we departed at 8:10am on a warm Ulaan Baatar morning, and crawled our way east towards the Chinese border. The carriage we were in had the luxery of air-conditioning. With parched Gobi as our scenery the temperature seemed unnatural inside, our solar panel hung from the curtain rail in the window happily converting the sun's rays into power for video cameras and mp3 players.
The fourth bunk on our train was occupied by the son of the Belgian Ambassador for London. He was on his way to the French Embassy where a friend of his father's was providing servants and a swimming pool. Our destination, on the other hand, was the Red Lantern backpackers' hostel. We found it in sticky, sticky heat, Jack on the tube, Jamie and Ben on their bikes. It was on a narrow alley, off a busy street full of bright, cheery, Asian hustle and bustle. The hostel is the epitomy of the orient, an atrium with an inner courtyard where crickets chirp, birds tweet and a help- yourself fridge provides us with beer for 15 pence a bottle (630ml) - that's cheaper than the water. Beijing is not the place we'd been expecting at all. It is clean, the people are friendly and fascinated by us. Jack was intently observed by a group of men near the station as if they had never seen the like of him before.
Our mission is to find a bike for Jack to cycle to Xian with us. It won't be a problem getting one, there are more bikes here than cars it seems. A brand new one, with basket up front, costs a pittance - 20 quid.
For the next 10 days we will be tourists before our push into the mountains south west of Beijing. We are headed for passes in excess of 4000 metres. Let us hope our holiday from cycling will not leave us too unfit!
Friday, July 01, 2005: "sain bainu Ulaan Baatar"
The train clunked along the tracks, freedom was ours! We had crossed into Mongolia! But a few moments ago we were sitting in our compartment awaiting a hefty fine, or even prison. Let me explain.
It all began when we entered Russia from Belarus all that time ago at an un-official border crossing. Of course, we did not realise our error at the time, not until we met with Jack who said something about needing to get 'stamped' into the country. We passed our visas to a guard who may never have experienced the pleasure of smiling. Then they were gone, whisked away for the official perusal. Our hearts pounded for the half hour that they were away from us. The heavy clump of guard boots along the carriage corridor did nothing for our nerves. Relief! They were stamped, no questions asked! Soon we were looking out over horses and happy children playing by the track; some waved as we passed. Happiness -a phenomenon unknown in the demeanor of the Russian- was here for us to be infected by. It was in our hearts as we waved back to white smiles and laughter. They couldn't believe the westerners waved back!
Our last days in Russia were far more spectacular than we imagined they would be. Lake Baikal is truly beautiful if you take the hydrofoil at the speed of light up the coast from the small fishing village of Listvianka to Bolshie Koty - an even smaller fishing village. The wooden architecture, roaming horses with foals, undulating grassy knolls with a backdrop of nooky crags and mountains could have been cheesy if it wasn't for the lovely edge of a moneyless atmosphere, and the quiet, friendly appreciation the people there showed for all they had.
The family we stayed with took us out onto the crystal clear waters of the lake on an old power boat, falling apart at the seams and smelling strongly of the endemic fish, Omul, which we ate enough of to give each member, save solid-bowel Jack, an inconvenient and explosive problem.
We stayed there long enough to see some of the rare Nerpa Seals, peculiar to Lake Baikal. Our zoologist and hawk-eye Wylson Jnr strangely did not see them before Jamie who assured us he'd always been good at spotting seals. We told a local who raised his brows and told us he'd never seen them before.
Pockets of preparation have left us exhausted on this bike-free leg of our adventure, both in Irkutsk and Ulaan Baatar. In cities there is a lot to do; buying train tickets, organising accommodation and making sure we spend the little time we have in these wondrous places wisely. It has drained every drip of our energy and with extreme mental fatigue we sit in this hot, slow cafe after one of the most vigorous adventure-planning days of our lives draws to a close. Tomorrow we will enter the Gobi Desert with a Russian jeep, driver, cook and interpreter for one week, with the prospect of riding camels, horses and climbing mountains a reality. Our trip was made possible courtesy of Tseren Tours of Ulaan Baatar - an 'off the beaten track' set up, run by kind people who want to show those interested in the Mongolian countryside, the real Mongolian countryside, as opposed to a stinking tourist trap.
Today -as payment for our toils- we have a 90-day visa for China firmly stuck in our passports, our tickets to Beijing are booked for the 9th July; we even managed to slip in a highly competitive game of Hopscotch, which Jamie knew the rules to... and a game of the old favorite, rock Boules -invented by FWE I might add, outside the Chinese embassy in the dust.
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