Velomad

Wagga Wagga, don't go there!

2011-11-09T14:05:00.001+08:00

2011-10-07T17:03:00.001+08:00

Didn't know Roos existed in Bolivia

2011-09-30T09:30:00.000+08:00

Don't don't panic, we haven't slowed down so much that we've started going backwards.

We did indeed find ourselves cycling through Bolivia, though to be honest there wasn't a lot to see, the sign was about the sum of it.

In case you weren't paying attention in school, we'd like to update you as WHERE Bolivia actually is.

For all of you who smugly thought "Duh - South America" we've teemed up with Google Maps to prove you wrong as they clearly show that Bolivia is in Australia, New South Wales and the New England Highway runs right through it. And if you're not confused by that plethora of familiar names you're clearly much better travelled than us!

View Larger Map

Can you believe it now. While Barbie wields her pink chainsaw!!

2011-06-23T11:57:00.004+08:00

the 28th March 2010 Sumatra .
Jalan Lintas Sumatra Utara –Riau 120 Km south of Rantauprapat. We did view the deforestation. Can you believe it now.

Can you believe it now.
While Barbie wields her pink chainsaw, the tigers and activists are calling on the world’s largest toy company to stop wrapping Barbie and its other toys up in forest destruction. The action follows the release of Greenpeace investigations last week, which revealed that Mattel’s toys are wrapped in packaging that comes from the notorious forest destroyer in Indonesia – Asia Pulp & Paper.

How bad is that!!

2011-06-21T16:13:00.001+08:00

A West Australian organic farmer has found genetically manipulated (GM) canola seeds contaminating nearly two thirds of his arable land. Australian organic standards mandate zero tolerance for any GM so he will consider suing for financial loss, the first case of its kind in Australia.

FOR SALE: Single wheel cargo bicycle

2011-05-25T12:55:00.006+08:00

Single wheel cargo bicycle trailer

Bag is only drizzle-proof.
New Tyre: Maxxis hookworm, inner tube anti- puncture, with quick release or screws.
AUS75.00

We're in Sydney so it can be collected from here or posted elsewhere in Australia provided post paid.

Email us or telephone 0448 025 882 if interested or know someone who may be.

Thanks :-)

People from developed countries should know better.

2010-07-29T16:25:00.002+08:00

The following post was written by Richard who's normal blog is in French and can be found here.

Just had my Dad on the phone talking about the Tour de France which they went to support this year, as they have done every year ever since I was a kid. They’re outraged how, the supposed so called “supporters” from all around the world (Germany , England, Australia, Spain etc) came to watch the tour at one of the most beautiful places in France, and not satisfied with behaving as complete utter hooligans (running around showing their bottoms) & screaming at the tour riders, but also left behind appalling amounts of rubbish.

People from developed countries should know better. Everyone talks about climate change & the importance of conserving the environment yet seem to think that their own behaviour is exempt.

I feel so disappointed, when I talk to schools and people from the countries I’m visiting, about the importance of caring and maintaining the planet we live on, yet thanks to the worldwide media coverage of the Tour de France these days, it’s clear that the west doesn’t care enough to give an example of what it’s preaching.

I’ve always loved the Tour de France passionately and whilst I’d hate such a thing to happen, I’m seriously wondering whether it should now be hosted in some sort of enclosed stadium so that the rubbish heap left behind these days doesn’t end up spread all over the beautiful mountain countryside of France.

Do these people come to show their love and support of cycling or just to get their brief moment of glory on television in the most horrendous manner possible?

Cycling Route Maps in Perth and Google Maps

2010-07-29T13:26:00.001+08:00

A week ago or so we emailed Bikewest (the cycling arm of the Department of Transport for Western Australia) congratulating them on their range of wonderful bike maps for Perth (available free online in pdf format at http://www.transport.wa.gov.au/cycling/14679.asp or at local Perth bikeshops (not for free though!) and asking if there was any intention of getting the information put on the website in GPS format; a suggestion which we felt was not just convenient for cyclists (looking at those maps in the rain or dark is no fun) but also possibly green (saves paper if not energy).

Never got a reply (surprise surprise) but glad to see that Google Maps finally took notice of all the cyclists who made the effort of requesting that Google to make their maps a bit more BICYCLE friendly by suggesting that google include biking directions on their google maps - to see what I'm talking about see my FB post at

http://www.facebook.com/Velomad?v=wall&story_fbid=236515813596.

Google have come up trumps but so far it's only for the USA (http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/03/its-time-to-bike.html) - hurry up guys - we're waiting over here in Aus!

2010-07-28T08:40:00.002+08:00

Thaleba National Parc after Wang Kelian border.
Pare

Greenpeace's KitKat Video Goes Viral Despite Censorship

2010-03-18T12:09:00.005+08:00

Glad to hear despite Nestlé's efforts to repress Greepeace's video paradying a KitKat commercial, it's already gone viral - woohoo!
Of course the fact that Nestlé had it pulled off UTube probably helped more than anything else the video's immediate catapult to popularity.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/kitkat

Have a break? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

Peeing Devices

2010-01-26T20:59:00.008+08:00

Travelling Two - a couple who've done more of their own fair share of bicycle touring and whose very impressive website can be accessed here did a review on 3 peeing devices a last week. No - you're not reading that incorrectly. I did indeed say PEEING DEVICES.

If that needs some clarification (which it usually does) these are a piece of kit that enable women to pee standing up without necessitating the need to pull their trousers down. It is for a better way of explaining it - a penis for peeing.

I'm not sure how I stumbled across the review on Travelling Two's website but it immediately caught my attention as I'd had my own peeing device for several years. It had been a present from a couple of close friends who are also fellow cycle tourers - their now a bit dated blog of their travels from Ireland to Mongolia can be found here.

They had sent a parcel to us to a friend as we didn't have a home of our own then having sold our own home to fund our travels. We were planning to stay with Neil and once he told us the parcel had arrived we spent several days nagging him by phone to open it and tell us what it contained. Neil, very meanly in our opinion refused to comply but he did get worn down enough to agree to tell us what it said on the packet.

"Book, 2 glasses and a ummm, a Fermette Director"

"What"

"A Fermette Director"

"Are you sure you're reading that right?"

"Pretty sure"

"What's a Fermette Director?"
"No idea"

It had both of us stumped. I just assumed the writing was incredibly bad and when I finally got to read it I’d make a better job of deciphering it.

Well Neil was right – when I finally got the package it did quite clearly state: “Fermette Director” and we still had no clue as to what it was.

Neil was adamant that we couldn't open it until Xmas day when there were a few friends around and quite a lot of drinks had been imbibed. We had absolute hysterics when we actually opened it, were still in confusion on seeing what it was and had to succumb to reading the instructions to figure out what it actually was.

Here's a picture of it - it was bought from REI the Usonian outdoor online equipment store (in case you are wondering what a Usonian is check out my blog from Thursday 21st Jan 2010) and has sometime in the last 5 years been renamed a Sani-Fem Freshette F.U.D. (or Feminine Urinary Director)

I never met anyone in the next 5 years who had ever heard of it but it was one of the best pieces of kit I ever had.

Richard loved it as we could have “who can pee the furtherest” competitions – though of course he always won having had a few more decades experience.

It’s brilliant in many ways (no splashing on your legs for starters) but definitely it came into it’s own in Siberia in the summer when the mosquitoes were rampant. We wore mosquito nets over our heads continually and waterproof jackets & trousers even though we sweated like mad as they would just bite through normal clothes. If I’d had to pull my trousers down to pee I might never have been able to sit on the bike seat again!

Also – I have to be honest – I adored having the freedom of just peeing against a tree in a busy city when no free or bearable toilet was available. No one ever expects a women to pee against a tree so they just don’t realise what you are up to. There are several towns in Russia that I recall having that pleasure in.

It was actually originally developed for women mountaineers so that they didn't have to exit the tent in the middle of the night at high altitude in the middle of a snowstorm. It's not much fun and a long, lengthy process peeling off the layers under those conditions with the constant worry of frost bite on the rear end. Men have for decades got away with staying snug in their sleeping bags and just filling an empty plastic bottle when the urge came upon them at 2am.

And YES – I can now vouch that not having to scamper out of the tent in the middle of the night when it’s snowing, raining or howling makes it worth it’s weight in gold.

But the best thing about it was I ALWAYS had a fun & slightly dis-believable topic of conversation for people I met on route – I’ve never met anyone who didn’t get a kick out of hearing or seeing it (though I generally drew the line at demonstrating how to use it!!!)

Having been without one for over a year it had been increasingly preying on my mind how much I actually missed it.

So when I saw that the Travelling Two were not only reviewing 3 similar models but they were also running a competition and giving 2 lucky winners one each, I couldn't by pass the chance of getting one. To enter all one had to do was right a comment on their website saying why I wanted one. Well to be honest I pretty much wrote most of what I've written here.

It's quite ridiculous how happy I was 5 days later when I received an email from Friedel saying I had won one and asking which model I wanted. I pumped for the Whiz Freedom - basically because it had the longer extension and the Pink Go-Girl & accompanying T-shirt wasn't really my style - just hope Bky the other winner doesn't choose the same one - can you imagine squabbling over which Pee Device you are going to get?

In case you're wondering about the other items in the package they were equally as much fun. The glasses were in fact plastic champagne glasses that unscrewed and folded into themselves so they were ont only lightweight but took up a tiny space and the book was "Sex in the Outdoors: A Humorous Approach to Recreation" by Buck Tilton.

Visa Hassles

2010-01-18T20:50:00.006+08:00

Last Friday I went to the Indonesian Embassy armed with our passports, photos, photocopies, fake airline ticket confirmations, money, credit cards etc.

We were after the 60 day Indonesian visa which IS extendible when you are in the country - unlike the normal 30 day VOA. Indonesia is a big country with a lot of sharp inclines - the standard 1 month tourist visa was just not going to hack it for us.

I was told (nicely) that I couldn't just hand in Richard's paperwork - he needed to submit his paperwork himself as every applicant was interviewed. So I figured we might as well apply together and cycled back to Kepong to break the news to him that he needed to do it himself.

However, I didn't feel that I had wasted my time as I had been told by various people & also read on the Lonely ~~Shit~~ Planet that the following would be required:

1. Passport
2. Photocopy of details page of passport
3. 2 passport photos
4. Confirmed onward ticket out of Indonesia
5. Proof of funds (usually a credit card & photocopy of both sides was acceptable)

I had also heard but only from 1 person that we needed a "sponsor" but I think they'd got confused with the fact that you need when when EXTENDING your visa - not for the initial application.

What the noticeboard and the lady at the reception indicated was required was:
1. Passport
2. Photocopy of details page of passport
3. Photocopy of current Malaysian visa (or Social Pass)
4. 2 passport photos
5. 170 RM

I was relieved no one said anything about any confirmed onwards tickets being required which was the main thing that had concerned us.

This morning we headed back to town, parked our bikes, clothed ourselves appropriately (shorts/t-shirts/flip-flops not allowed and entered.

Today the guard wasn't satisfied with just the Departure/Customs Declaration card that I'd been advised was acceptable on Friday but I stuck my heels in and denied adamantly that I had any other form of id on me (I wasn't about to pass over my credit cards) so he relented.

When will I ever learn huh? Karma's keeping a strict eye on me this year to ensure I behave myself as she clearly feels she's been too lax in the past. I thought I'd got off scot free but she wasn't going to let me off that easily and was just biding her time to slap my wrists.

There didn't seem to be a problem, I was questioned on why I had a Malaysian visa extension and I explained about Richard's return to France for a month. He asked me if I was working and I acted suitably surprised I think and reconfirmed the reason was that Richard had been gone for a month.

The final thing as he flicked through my passport was "what are all these yellow stickers?" I'd stuck a Post-It note on every blank page with the words "Please don't stamp, reserved for visa". I had pulled one out so there was a blank page available as I hadn't forgotten the time at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh when they'd returned Richard's passport saying that they couldn't issue a visa as the yellow post it notes prohibited them using the page. I explained that this was to prevent the border officials from placing their stamps on a new page every time I crossed a border as I needed to save my pages for visas - I pointed out that the passport was only 2 years old yet was already over 50% full and that it was meant to be good for 10 years. He left it at that and I didn't think any more of it.

Back at the office around 1:30ish I got a phone call from a pleasant sounding woman by the name of Sarah from the Indonesian Embassy.

"Would it be ok if we just give you a 1 month visa?" she enquired.

Whaaaaaat?

I explained I really needed the 2 month visa as I was cycling and well, it's a big country etc.

"Oh" was Sarah's response followed by a discussion in the background with another person.

A moment later & returned her attention to me and explained that "it's the yellow stickies you have in your passport - that's why we've decided to only give you 1 month instead of 2"

"Well couldn't you just remove them from the passport? I don't mind" and explained AGAIN why they were there and that I was quite happy for them to remove the stickies if that would aid in the processing of a 2 month visa.

More discussion. Sarah finally told me she'd ring me back.

"Couple on a cycling mission" - like the title but the rest?

2009-10-13T12:12:00.001+08:00

The Star Newspaper (no - not the UK tabloid - this is a Malay Newspaper) published an article on us today. As usual it's bland, inaccurate and plain wrong about several things. It's also completely slapdash and I don't have time to relate why.

How come it's practically impossible for journalists to provide a true, precise story?

Couple on a cycling mission

Shared via AddThis

Mid Autumn Moon Festival at Teluk Chempedak, Kuantan

2009-10-03T14:30:00.009+08:00

The Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunisolar month and this year it fell on Saturday the 3rd of October.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has a mere history of 2000 years. During these 2000 years many Mid-Autumn traditions have emerged but the main one's are: appreciating the moon, eating moon cakes and making Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns.

Well, we didn't get to eat any moon-cakes but we'd already got the chance to practise this part of the celebration when we'd stayed in Jerantut with the family of a Couchsurfing member. He'd also invited us to a BBQ (yep we didn't get to eat too much!) where a pre Mid-Autumn Festival was held and I got to light a lantern that night (I lit the candle and opened the accordion lantern - admittedly it doesn't quite qualify as making one.)

But tonight we did get to appreciate the moon (though that too was a close one as the evening had started off with vicious black clouds rolling in and not a star in sight) which eventually peeked out of the clouds and chased them away.

We even got to see some Hung Ming lanterns floating into the sky (They fly because the burning candles heat the air in the lantern and the lantern rises with the heated air) though these were helped slightly by being attached to a few balloons.

Fireworks of course, firecrackers OF COURSE! And masses of neon bracelets, neon frisbees and various other neon contraputions - many with that awful synthesized sounds so beloved by young kids.

Alor Star Bicycle Shop - Vee Rubber

2009-08-26T15:44:00.010+08:00

When we arrived in Alor Star totally drenched and worn out, Richard slipped into a ditch and smashed his mud guard.

So today he went off to find somewhere it could be repaired and luckily, where we're staying, about 6kms south of the centre of Alor Star, is adjacent to lots of workshops, so he was hopeful of getting it repaired.

Although he didn't actually have any success doing that, he did manage to find some metal parts and spent much of the day doing the repairs himself (he's always been a rather marvellous little McGuyver!)

While he was trawling the workshops he found a bike shop. Surprised that it was in the area and more importantly, delighted. We'd seen a copy of the new Malaysian cycling magazine http://www.cyclingmalaysia.com/ (it's only now the first issue & the website is nothing more than a page with a picture of the front cover at the moment but it hopefully it'll get a bit more interesting in the future) and they had a list in the back of what at first glance seemed to be all the bike shops in Malaysia. Then we noticed that while there were 4 bike shops mentioned in the state of Perlis, Kedah wasn't even in the list. According to the literature given out by the

Malaysian tourist board Kedah has a population of 25 million. The city of Alor Star itself has a population of a little over 200,000 - roughly the same population as the whole state of Perlis. So why no bike shops in Kedah? Even the most important bicycle race of Malaysia; The Tour of Langkawi; is held in the state of Kedah. Seemed strange that there would be no bicycle shops listed.

Well clearly Cycling Malaysia still has a bit more homework to do as Richard discovered the Vee Rubber Malaysia SDN BHD bike shop (yes strange name - guess all those initials mean something to the average Malay though) just around the corner from where we were staying.

They specialise in tyres and having a look at his front tyre (the one kindly donated by the Thai Cycling Club in Bangkok) they immediately offered to give him a sample. Vee is apparently a Thai company but we've got to admit we've never heard of it.

I went back later with Richard and met Kleng - the Marketing Executive of Vee Rubber and he told us a bit about the tyres they could get here and what was considered good quality. We advised him to get some schwalbe for all the cycle tourers who are always desperately hunting for the Marathon XR as they are certainly unavailable in Thailand what with the 40% import tax.

On seeing my front tyre they had the front wheel off in moments and were changing it for another Cross Country Vee. They certainly look good!

For anyone interested in visiting the shop the address is

No.101 & 102, Kawasan Perusahaan Tandop,

05050 Alor Star,

Kedah Darul Aman,

Malaysia

opposite Alor Star Shopping Mall if anyone has difficulties finding it.

News of us in Astv Manager newspaper - Bangkok

2009-07-16T19:11:00.001+08:00

The first time we came to Bangkok in March 2009 we spoke to a journalist from the Astv Manager Newspaper.

They've just published the article and of course our Thai's not quite good enough to figure out everything it says (haha!) but we're hoping it's not all bad ;-)

How one finds there's no food left in the fridge

2009-07-03T11:06:00.001+08:00

There's many ways to tell your partner that you've run out of something.

This is Richard's favourite way of letting me know...

Want Your Wisdom Tooth Pulled?

2009-06-25T17:18:00.005+08:00

When we were in Lopburi and mentioned we'd be staying a couple of weeks in Bangkok so that Richard could get his wisdom teeth pulled we were strongly advised not to have it done in Bangkok "it's soooooooooooo expensive" we heard numerous times from various people.

Well, Richard checked out a number of dentists & basically the price seemed to be somewhere between 2,500 - 6,500 Baht per tooth.

Our friend Tai told us that his friend was a dentist in Lopburi & he'd do it for somewhere between 250 - 350 Baht per tooth. We decided to check that as there had been a lot of confusion over ordinary teeth (which started about 350 in Bangkok) and wisdom teeth (know as tooth extraction here) and when we made ourselves clear the price just shot up. So we took a photo of the 2 treatments in Thai & sent it to our friend asking him to confirm that his friend indeed meant a wisdom tooth rather than a normal tooth. In fact there had been email correspondence for a week going back & forth, us asking our friend to check with his dentist friend the price, the date/time & booking Richard in etc as he didn't want to catch the train all the way there (3 hours from Bangkok) and find the dentist was too busy to see him. Or for that matter for the price to change to the foreigner price (anything from 10% more to 1000% more - we kid you not. The entry for a Thai person to a Khao Yai park for example is 40 Baht -

for a Farang it's 400!)

Come the day Richard got up about 5am to catch the bus to the train station. Arriving in Lopburi he telephoned our friend Tai who

embarrassedingly told him that he couldn't come to pick him from the train station as his housekeeper was ill. But he told Richard where his friend the dentist was and Richard went off to find him.

On arriving to the dentist he found out that the Dentist had no idea who Tai was! Maybe the word "friend" has a far more loose application here. But he was nice enough to see Richard straight away & after several slips of the pliers on the tooth it was out. He only charged 350 baht too!

Richard came back to Bangkok with a blood soaked cloth and a chubby gerbil look and spent the next 10 days consuming food out of a straw (which we were later told was the wrong thing to do!)

In case anyone is interested in having their teeth worked on in Lopburi here's the Dentist's Business card.

Meeting a Thai Hero

2009-06-11T11:25:00.004+08:00

When we first started doing long distance cycling I honestly wondered if we'd be the first people to cycle from Alaska to Ushuaia - haha - just goes to show my naivety.

But long distance cyclists were rare in those days and you pretty much got to know of everybody on the road. Over the last 5 years though long distance touring has certainly taken off and we bump into cyclists or hear of someone's mate who cycled from Australia to England (or something along those lines) on practically a daily basis. In fact just last week a friend emailed me about another cycling friend of hers who had been hit 3 times, first by a motorbike, then a car and now a bus. Turned out to be Matt Blake, an English cyclist we'd bumped into several times

while we were in Laos. One of my memories of Matt was sitting in a restaurant in Oudom Xai / Muang Xai / Udom Xai (a mere 3 names that the town is known by) with another British cyclist we'd met there and he told us that he felt special because touring by bicycle was so rare & unique. At the time I was thinking "well 5 years ago maybe but now?".

When we were in Ayuthaya we had the pleasure of meeting one of those original RTW cyclists who really did do it when no practically no one else was.

Mr Preecha Pimpan is the first (and apparently only) Thai to have successfully cycled around the world. He did it in 2 trips, one in the 40's (if I recall correctly) and

the 2nd part in the 60's. I had heard of him before so when we mentioned that our next stop was Ayuthaya to a cycling friend in LopBuri and he informed us that was where Mr Preecha's school was we immediately were resolved to meet him.

Our friend wrote down the name of Mr Preecha's school (Jirasartwittaya) for us and on arriving in Ayuthaya we headed to the tourist office where the delightful and friendly (but to be honest rather useless) staff looked up the telephone number & indicated on our map where the school was.

Luckily for us the school was right bang in the middle of the historical district so within moments we were speeding through the gates of the school, past the security guard who clearly suspected we didn't have any right to be there but didn't fancy embarrassing himself by legging it after us.

Mr Preecha was a gem and treated us as if we were honoured guests and we truly regretted not being able to take him up on his offer of staying there for a week

(though we managed to squeeze 2 nights in). Here's a photo of us with him in front of the glass window exhibit that displays the 2 bikes he toured on the world with, along with his panniers & other stuff he took with him. You only need to glance through the window to know that touring back in those days was a completely different thing to what it is now.

Good on the Cow

2009-05-08T16:13:00.003+08:00

http://newslite.tv/2009/05/07/cow-escapes-new-york-slaughter.html

Angkor Thom Magazine Article about Velomad

2009-03-06T12:37:00.004+08:00

Well those nice people at the Angkor Thom Magazine published an article about us today.

We have no idea what they wrote - our Cambodian is still limited to about 5 words

hello

how are you, goodbye

yes

thank you

bicycle Grandfather bicycle repairer - Richard's Khmer name) and a few numbers.

Yeah - ok that's more han 5 words admittedly.

We figure they must have gone onto our blog as we certainly never gave them those photos - can't understand why they'd print photos of Vietnam and China.

We're hoping that they've mentioned our views on the environment, global warming, climate change, war & peace & being vegetarian as well as why we travel by bicycle.

Having looked at the type of magazine it is online we're not holding our breath but we are wondering if we'll be mobbed by girly Khmer teenagers.

Have a look at their website for yourself!

http://www.angkorthommagazine.com/index.php?page=home

Laos Newspaper Article in French

2009-03-05T11:59:00.003+08:00

So who usually pays for the bridges?

2009-02-21T12:34:00.001+08:00

We've cycled over quite a few bridges now in Cambodia which is a GORGEOUS change after Laos where we usually had to push our bikes through the river.

This sign on a bridge following the Mekong caught my eye as it made me think - is it so rare that the Cambodian government actually pays for it's own bridges that it has to advertise the fact?

Spiderman converts us to being Obana Fans

2009-02-17T10:17:00.000+08:00

Today I have instantly become a fan of Obama.

What swung me after months of neutrality was the following email from Spiderman.

If you're interested in hearing about what Spiderman's up to you can subscribe to his newsletter at

http://www.thesolutionissimple.org/

Now here's the email.

global warming is genocide.

At the end of this year world leaders meet in Copenhagen and must agree to at least a 50% global emissions reduction target.

America, under the presidency of Barack Obama, is now set to lead the world. George Bush wouldn't agree to a 5% emmissions reductions goal. Barack Obama is personally committed to an 80% goal. That is real leadership.

Millions of people are already playing a part to reduce their personal emissions, but we cannot succeed without urgent and significant action by world leaders.

Let's remember, the solution is simple:

Stop cutting down trees. Plant more trees.
Make everything energy efficient.
Only make clean energy.

Because I know you care and are prepared to act for our climate, I have asked www.onehundredmonths.org to send you their monthly email. It is brief, includes useful information, inspiration and effective actions. You can unsubscribe at any time.

My deepest thanks.

We climb on.

Alain Robert
Spiderman

Back in Hanoi

2008-11-15T18:48:00.005+08:00

Yep - we're back in Hanoi. While we were in Ho Chi Minh we heard about the floods in Hanoi but luckily everything had dried out by the time we got back - well almost.

The train arrived an hour late on our return (yes we left Pepe and Hanoi back in Saigon - we'll miss them wobbling around on them) beacuse on the outskirts of Hanoi the train tracks were stil submerged in water so the train entered Hanoi at tortoise speed. A whole chunk of south Hanoi was still without electricity & people were rowing around in small boats.

But otherwise Hanoi was ok - well apart from our old house in Doi Can. We went there a couple of nights ago to catch up & have a few drinks - the deepest water was right outside our old house's gate. Of course this wasn't rainwater anymore - the sewers had backed up and the stink was - well you can imagine that for yourself. We were informed that the water hadn't yet subsided since the flooding. The general consensus was that the drains had been blocked by the rats who'd drowned in the floods.

For Bored Cyclists - or those who have too much to do & want to avoid doing it!

2008-11-03T16:50:00.004+08:00

Here's a bit of silly timewasting fun I stumbled across today & figured if I was wasting time why shouldn't you?

A quiz about cycling.

http://www.quizmoz.com/quizzes/Sport-Cycling-Events-Quizzes/c/Cycling-Facts-Quiz.asp

Here's my score - thankfully considerable above the average - suspect that it isn't cyclists who are taking the quiz!

Hiding In Buon Ma Thuot

2008-10-09T14:22:00.006+08:00

We arrived in Buot Me Thuot last night. First thing we noticed was that Richard's hat was not returned to him by our friendly Plei Ku friends - no big surprise there.

Richard did the rounds of the hotels to find the cheapie. We checked out Ly Thuong Kiet and ended up in Thanh Phat at 120K a night. No 33 offered us a room at 80K but we decided not to take it as it was a shared bathroom & we wanted to have our own room to do our washing.

Haha did we get stiffed yet again or what?

Sure we have our own bathroom but the hot water doesn't work so we have to use the bathrrom next door and the sink spills out all over the floor as the U-pipe isn't connected to anything.

But we're enjoying being able to hide from the outside world - that's all we need right now.

En route avec deu=x nouveau vieux Velo

2008-09-27T14:34:00.001+08:00

Mon Cai - Entering Vietnam

2008-05-22T14:35:00.004+08:00

Communist Propaganda Poster on entering the Chinese/Vietnamese border at Mon Cai

Back to the Rocks

2008-02-10T16:40:00.000+08:00

The delights of being in China!

You know - the Chinese are incredably generous - you nearly always get a freebie with your rice. As if our bikes don't weigh enough - we're carrying rocks too.

Yep - our dentist is going to have a heart attack when we get back to the UK - not sure we have any teeth left that haven't been cracked or chipped by those extra little rocks you find in every bag of rice

The Great Firewall of China

2008-02-09T18:54:00.000+08:00

Many people are unaware that there are 2 Great Walls of China.

That may seem laughable to many of you reading this - after all the Golden Shield Project (yes - that's the official name of the GFofC) is frequently on the news. But think about it - China, according to numerous unscientific surveys conducted every year, has the second largest national group surfing the Web, after USA. That's a lot of people. Despite the fact that learning English is obligatory in Chinese schools it's only a small percentage that can actually speak it and they are mostly congregated in the large cities. Once you get out of those mammoth metropolises there's not much of any foreign language to be found. So most internet users in China don't actually access any non Chinese language so they are simply unaware of the Firewall.
One consequence of the firewall is the speed - even ADSL is frustratingly slow here.

None of this is new to us of course. This blog is inaccessible in China unless you use a proxy. Not that there is anything controversial on it (well there wasn't until this post was added) - just many blog sites are banned - including E-blogger which we use. Interestingly enough our website is banned on some ISP's but not on others. We used to advise our Chinese friends to use surfonsteroids to access our blogs & website but it seems it's no longer working.

Anonymouse is however - ever if it's horrendously slow. For any of you interested, the website is www.anonymouse.org or you can just stick

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/

in front of the webpage you are trying to access.

For example if you are trying to access Richard's blog

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://velomadfr.blogspot.com/

Of course the irony is that you don't need this information if you are outside China & you'll never get to this page without already knowing something like this if you are in China. Catch 22.

The reason I'm bringing it up is that the Great Firewall is actually cleverer than I realised. Last night I tried updating our website. I wrote a couple of things - uploaded, checked, everything ok so I carried on.

Wrote a bit more, uploaded, checked - everything ok.

Write a bit more, uploaded - upload failed, tried again, and again - no avail.

Strangely enough the very small extra text I had added was on exactly this subject - that surfonsteriods no longer worked & to use anonymouse to access the blogs.

I had a fleeting suspicion. I deleted the last bit added, the upload worked perfectly, on reinserting the forbidden text the upload failed. I tried it about 8 times adding & removing the same bit of text to check it wasn't a fluke.

Eventually I added the text word by word to see what the culprit was - turned out to be the word "proxy". Everything else was fine.

They are smart aren't they?

In case someone has access to a computer outside China, we found this web page which may be of interest. We only have the 1 computer here with us in China - unless anyone fancies volunteering!

http://peacefire.org/circumventor/simple-circumventor-instructions.html

Rain in Suwon.

2007-09-16T17:49:00.000+08:00

Why did we get a phone?

Ahhhhh yes – we have one. Fed up with everybody from CS saying – “call me” we decided to acquire one via a devious and dastardly deed (we accepted Terry’s (aka as Samy the Demon Dog) offer of lending us one).

Started ring at some hideous time in the morning (9:09 to be exact) Admittedly – normally at this time I bouncing around – bored out of my mind wondering how to tempt Richard out of bed but today I was hung over and the phone kept on ringing all morning – the guy from the cycling shop, the journalist from Metro, the wretched KTC engineer (haven’t they figured out yet that we don’t speak Korean?). After 4 calls I switched it off.

We headed to the Hwasong Haenggung in a slight drizzle. Although not delighted by the weather, the changing of the guards’ ceremony (Jang Yong Yeong) is only held on the weekend so it was our only chance to see it. Haha - it was cancelled because of the rain – what kind of wimps are these guards anyway? Bet that rain isn’t an issue in London when it comes to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.

Seoul - South Korea

2007-09-13T16:53:00.000+08:00

We arrived in Seoul ...when...crumbs - 12 days ago. We've been here forever!

Well - we are definately leaving on Saturday and will head down to Suwon - not far - probably 50 - 60kms from where we are now (we are currently way up on the North-East edge of Seoul in the Nowon-gu district.

It seems we've hardly done anything but move from host to host and speak to journalists.

I've also been hunting for a camera - Richard spent the 1st few days hunting for a place to see the French - Argentina World Cup Rugby match. So far neither has been sussessful. The Game was at 4am here so all the bars that would have shown it were closed - everything shuts down at 2pm here - well the bars do - apparently the clothes shops are still open (whhhaaat?)

I finally got completely sick of the lack of flexibility of my Canon Powershot Pro1 (good camera - just doesn't actually do what I want it to - mainly due to lack of lenses). Having found out in China there are virtually no lenses that go with it and losing my polarising filter (as well as the adapter - the only shop that seemed to sell this tiny piece of plastic in Beijing wanted to charge me 380 Yuan for it - about 38 Euros - haha. I got them down to 150 in the end but I still wasn't going to pay that for what would cost maybe 3 euros back home)

So like every good tourist here I headed down to Yangsan to purchase the Nikon D40X which several people assured me was an excellent camera - only to be totally confounded by the sellars who all wanted to flog me a Canon Kiss Digital X (otherwise known as the XTi in Europe & the States). So if anyone knows anything about that camera don't hesitate to let me know - before tomorrow - HA!

We had an article published in the Chosun newspaper a few days ago - I'll stick it up on the website in next few days - it's in Korean of course. We think it says it's our second time in Korea as since it's publication several people have asked us why we've come back a second time to Korea (that wasn't meant to sound like it does)

Risk Management

2007-09-02T14:59:00.000+08:00

A friend from the States sent us the following information by email - no idea if it's true or not but it wouldn't be a great surprise if it was would it?

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, here's a sobering statistic:

There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths. That gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington

Korea - Incheon

2007-09-01T10:09:00.000+08:00

Well we've arrived in Incheon, South Korea.

That makes the running total of the countries we've visited to date (together) by bicycle 38.

Only what another 170ish to go. There are different methods of counting - many people use the members of the UN as the criteria - well then according to that Switzerland isn't a country. Others argue that the UK is one country - I wouldn't like to upset our Welsh and Scottish pals by even stating which factbook claims that. As our blog is banned in China anyway (the Great Firewall of China) it's ok for me to state that many consider Taiwan an independent country. Well ayway - the highest count I've seen is 212 and the lowest 189. Whichever - there's plenty for us to visit.

So what are our first impressions?

The drivers aren't nearly as bad as Jan Boostra states on his amazing website

http://user.chollian.net/~boonstra/korea/cycle.htm

For those of you planning to cycle in Korea this is an essential resource.

Anyway - back to what I was waffling about.

In China we thought our eardrums would split from the constant honking. Jan says it's the same in Korea but we haven't actually noticed it yet - maybe when we get into the countryside. But they do have that amazingly annnoying set of road rules - it doesn't matter what is happening behind you - just keep your eyes forward. So when people are reversing they don't bother looking behind them - and typically not what's in the lane next to them as they randomly switch lanes (again - China has this craziness down to a fine art so it's a puppy ride in comparison here).

What have we been doing in Incheon?

Not much really - hanging out with our Couchsurfer hosts, visiting resturants which we seriously cannot afford to do. Gawking at the street signs - apparently the Korean alphabet is the most logical in the world but I've yet to start tackling it - too exhausted after trying to learn Chinese so have decided to give myself a few days rest.

Next week we'll head to Seoul...on route to Busan - though haven;t decided our route yet.

Ten White Virtues

2007-05-06T03:20:00.000+08:00

Lunch with one of my classes today. As usual most of them were late – well I suppose it's reassuing in a way – they weren't just late to my class because they hated it. They very kindly gave me a Morin Khur (horse-headed violin). This is apparently the national instrument of Mongolia but the number of people who can play it in Ulaanbaatar is few and far between.. It’s one of the oldest of all bowed instruments and the name comes of course from the fact that they were originally made from a horse head for the body, horse skin for the resonator, and horse hair for the strings and bow. Mine of course is made from wood and I think cotton for the string so my musical talents won’t be improving in the foreseeable future.

Agi told me he was a Buddhist - which I found intriguing – seeing that he had just finished off a plate of meat. It reminded me that to date I have only met one vegetarian in Mongolia yet a significant number claim to be Buddhist. The following is from a book called the “Mongolian Tradition at a Glance” (available from the Mongol Messenger for 3,000 T). It has a section called “Ten White Virtues”

First – do not kill living creatures, even insects, and save them from death when possible.

Second – do not complain about someone who does not give you something, but give to them and do not think of receiving anything in return.

Third – abandon misbehaviour and self-esteem.

Fourth – abhor slander; try to be peaceful and calm.

Sixth – do not use bad language. Speak gently and respectfully.

Seventh – do not use cunning words to gain a profit, but say exactly what you mean.

Eighth – do not quarrel or have treacherous intentions. Always speak the truth.

Ninth – do not be greedy. Offer only love and compassion.

Tenth – refrain from wicked actions, but always try to be sympathetic and sociable.

Sadly – I’d be surprised if I met anyone in UB who abided by one of these “virtues”.

The move to Midkhat's

2007-05-03T12:36:00.000+08:00

Yes - we are officially FREE!

Although our last teaching day was on Monday - we had exam papers to mark and files to handover on Tuesday. Richard was a bit shocked to walk in on Tuesday morning and be handed a file to mark - he didn't even know about it but they had been given their exam that morning. Well - after spending much of the day returning books from the library and waiting around for people to turn up we maanaged to head back to the flat about 3:30. Monkhuu had very kindly offered us a driver to help us move but Richard wasn't sure we'd have everything ready to move by then - amazingly enough we actually walked out the door with the 2nd load of gear at 4:20 - early!

But as Richard said - it probably was quicker to walk over to Midkhat's ourselves - when the driver had helped us move from Midkhat's to our flat when we first started at thge school, we met at the school, waited half an hour for the driver, headed off in the opposite direction, stopped at a couple of shops, turned around and headed back to the school. When we finally set off again we did make it to the flat to unload our gear but then had the long route back to our new home, via several shops & a petrol station. We found our driver was hunting down a specific type of phonecard. At the time we concluded it must be very tough to find one - we know better now. All it all it took 2.5 hours - to move a few bags a 10 minute walk. Hmmmmm. I understood what direction Richard was coming from after he reminded me of that scenario.

The evening was spent scrubbing the flat clean - ironic considering what a mess the place was in when we moved in.

Mobile Phones

2007-03-17T18:20:00.000+08:00

Today we heard on the news that Italy has introduced a new law prohibiting mobile phones in classrooms. Hurrah!

One thing that annoys all the teachers at Santis is the complete disregard the students have for the etiquette of mobile phone usage. With complete disregard for the fact that they are disturbing the lesson, students with blithely answer a call in the middle of the lesson and chat away without the slightest hesitation. When we request they take their phones and discussion outside into the hallway, you can see the think bubbles floating above their heads “What on Earth For?”

With the children’s classes it’s another matter all together – trying them to stop text messaging during the lesson is a struggle that most teachers have given up with. Richard got so fed up with it he’s instigated a rule that no phones must even be brought into the classroom – he makes them leave them at reception before the class starts. If it’s an urgent call the receptionists can call the student out of the class – strangely enough - that has yet to happen. The most laughable thing of course is the complete blatancy with which they will deny using their phones when you catch them. When I did children’s classes I used to bring a box in and make them put the phones in before the class commenced.

A couple of days ago I did a private level 6 class. There was a listening comprehension section – where the student had to analyse the situation. The dialogue scenario was of a man in a restaurant having dinner with some people. He received a call during the discussion and answered the phone – told the caller he’d call him back and recommenced his conversation. A waiter meanwhile came over and explained that mobile calls were not permitted within the restaurant and could take the phone outside if he wished to use it. When the student recounted the dialogue he interpreted it as the man couldn’t hear the caller clearly and that was the reason why he had terminated the call – he as going to call back in the hope of a clearer line.

When I clarified the situation he was clearly surprised that phones should be banned in a restaurant, and totally amazed when I added that in England we had trains where there were specific carriages where mobile phones were banned.

He told me that the law in Mongolia prohibited the use of mobile phones whilst driving (ha-ha – now that cam as a complete shock!) – but added that it was a typical “Three Day Law”. At my look of bewilderment he explained that when most laws in Mongolia come into effect – they are adhered to for 3 days and then everyone forgets about hem. Well that certainly makes a lot of things make sense!

I recited the episode to Bobbie, a Canadian couchsurfer who was staying with us that night. I added that Steve, one of the follow teachers at Santis, plays in a jazz band here in UB and what still amazes and infuriates him is the Mongolian drummer Gambat. Gambat is one of the loveliest & fun guys that you could ever hope to meet but they were completely dumbfounded when they were doing a performance one night and in the middle of the piece Gambat’s phone rang. No worries – Gambat just answered the phone – shoved it between his shoulder & ear and carried on semi – drumming. Of course he couldn’t hear anything above the music so he simply shouted down the phone – way above the music! Bobbie couldn’t believe it – he had just seen exactly the same thing happen on TV when he was in the Gobi a couple of nights earlier & said it was hysterical – the looks on the other band members faces – of course it turned out to be Steve’s band – seems Gambat hasn’t taken the hint after almost a year of playing with them!

We went to our local haunt the Meal’Ody last night to listen to U-Bop (Steve’s band). I told Andrew the story of Bobbie seeing Gambit doing the Mongolian mobile act and Andrew responded that a few nights ago he had been in the UB Palace (the largest nightclub in UB – rumoured to have a T3,000 fine for vomiting on the floor). There was a Hip Hop duo playing (not really live – playing pre-recorded music) and one of duo’s phones when off. He answered – of course – but because he could hear what was being said he switched off all the decks & continued with his call. All the clubbers had to stand there until he finished his conversation whereupon he switched the music back on!

That’s Mongolia for you!

Hannah and Steve's

2007-02-05T07:59:00.000+08:00

We went to Steve and Hannah's last night.

They are both fellow teachers at Santis in fact you can see Hannah proudly (haha) displaying her Teacher's Diploma in one of the pictures. She's still pretty gob smacked about receiving it but it does have the space of honour in he living roo - under the telly. Of course to put things into perspective you have to realise that there are only 2 things in the living room - the telly & the sofa.

More importantly - Hannah decided to try her hand at cooking - and we were the guinea pigs of course. Actually her creation was really good - we were impressed anyway.

Then again after several beers and vodkas I guess that one is always impressed by any form of sustience.

Thought I'd quickly point out that Steve is a great musician - everyone who knows me knows that I am highly qualified to be able to make such a judgement (being completely tone deaf & not having the slightist inkling about music)

So check out his website http://www.steve-tromans.co.uk
and you can also catch him at the Meal'Ody on Friday nights.

http://velomad.multiply.com/photos/slideshow/2

lo=ink to multiple

Ever wondered what they put in your biscuits? Maybe you should.

2006-09-19T08:38:00.000+08:00

Windy is a popular brand of biscuits here in Mongolia. That's one thing you can't dispute - the food is certainly international. Naturally there are masses of products from China but Turkey & Ukraine provide several brands of biscuits ( the Ukrainian brands tend to be better - more chocolate! Some of the Turkish brands claim to contain chocolate filling but at least 2 or 3 in every packet seem to miss that bit out)

You can also get jars of pickled salads from Poland and Germany, real coffee from Colombia & Germany - and that nasty stuff from the USA that contains powered milk and sugar.

Check out the ingredients in Windy - a turkish brand of biscuits they sell here in Mongolia.

"Decomposed bottom powder of bottom juice"

Mmmmm - doesn't that sound enticing?

Russian Expressions

2006-07-29T15:21:00.000+08:00

"There's no trusting feet"

Was asked if we had an equilivilent in English - not that I can think of!

Richard Behaving Normally

2006-07-28T22:48:00.000+08:00

This is the man I travel with. I ask you!

Camping in Austria - amazing what you can do with a MSR net pan bag

Get video codes at Bolt.

We Can Make A Difference

2006-07-28T21:25:00.000+08:00

For those who have been following Richard's Blog, you'll know he has recently been mentioning Greenpeace's "We're trashing it" campaign aimed at stopping McDonald's planting soya in the Brazilian rainforests for their Chicken McNuggets (as Richard's site is in French you may wish to read this report by Greenpeace in English)

Well there's GREAT news. McDonald's have made a U-turn and are actively urging other companies to join them.

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

You can read about it on Greenpeace's webpage.

The campaign still continues for KFC though - so if you haven't already emailed KFC to ask them to stop you can do it here. It worked for the Golden Arches!

Quote of the Day

2006-07-27T06:30:00.000+08:00

No idea who said this but it appealed to me.

BE NICE TO AMERICA OR WE'LL BRING DEMOCRACY TO YOUR COUNTRY.

Also on the same website

AN EYE FOR AN EYE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND.

www.alternet.org/story/39164/

Quote of the Day

2006-07-26T06:51:00.000+08:00

Discussion with a Moscow B-Boy:

B-Boy: Watch out for bad people.
Richard: We've been lucky so far - we haven't met any.
B-Boy: They've got good camouflage

Max the Cat, St Petersburg

2006-07-04T23:03:00.000+08:00

Eugene has a beautiful Persian cat. He has enormous eyes that look at you in
a contemptuous evil manner. Despite this he is a loving and gentle creature.
Our hearts bleed for him.

Eugene explains that as he "fouls everywhere" he keeps him closed in his kitchen so that he does not foul the other rooms. So Max just "fouls" the kitchen - every time we enter there is another offering on the floor. I pratically throw up everytime as the windows are kept locked to deter thieves.

The kitchen is 2m by 2m - most of which is taken up by cupboard, fridge-freezer oven etc. No wonder poor Max fouls everywhere - he must be miserable locked up in there all day and night. The only time he is allowed out is when Eugene is at home in the evenings - we've noticed the earliest Eugene comes home is 7pm.

Here are some pictures of Eugene's kitchen.

Last night Richard came back before me as I stopped at the supermarket to buy something. When I arrived, Richard let me in. Then we realised we couldn't see Max. A through search of the flat didn't unearth him. We went into panic mode! An hour of searching the flat, the block, the surrounding gardens. Finally we saw him poking his head out behind the very tiny gap behind the oven. Eugene said it is normal for him to hide there - wish he'd mentioned this to us - think we both aged 2 years in that hour.

Funk Fanatix in St Petersburg, Russia

2006-06-30T15:11:00.000+08:00

Our friend Sergey from Gatchina is a Hip Hop B-Boy and is part of the Funk Fanatix crew in Saint Petersburg. Here's a video of him and is crew competeing with another crew- be warned it takes a while to load and you'll need adsl to watch it

Upload videos at Bolt.

and here are some of the rest of the B-Boys

Upload videos at Bolt.

If you want to see them they are often at Ulica Lomonosva - near Lomonosva Sq at 17:00 on Fridays

Some Images from St Petersburg

2006-06-29T16:03:00.000+08:00

20th June 2006

2006-06-21T23:22:00.000+08:00

No parcel yet. So we treated ourselves to Jabs instead - tick emphasitis.
Poor nurses in the hospital must have been very tired - they couldn't
remember what "Tick" was in Estonian. Perhaps only foreigners ask for the
jab. Weather still incredible.

After last nights wine fiasco we tentatively turned Copain on this morning.
Mouse was slightly mad - CD drive wouldn't open at all. After manually
forcing it open it wouldn't even acknowledge any disc we tried. But by mid
day Copain began slowly recovering - the CD drive still doesn't want to open
very frequently but it does seem to read successfully. Will attempt the
write test in a few days.

Published in newspaper today. Nice picture - wonder what it says!

Velomad Website Gone

2006-06-21T03:55:00.000+08:00

Sorry - our website is down as we didn't pay our renewal subscription.

When it was a free service we never had any problems - the minute we started paying for it we had problems receiving our emails, the site was frequently down and it became a nightmare to upload updates. So we've decided to stay with the blog for a while.

If any one knows a good free site provider (without ads!) let us know.

In the meantime you can access Richard's french blog here

Torun, Poland

2006-06-14T20:49:00.000+08:00

Richard complains that I take too long to take photos but I reckon sometimes it's worth it. Click on the image for a larger view

Lets see what the papers say

2006-06-14T20:48:00.000+08:00

Tarfu, Estonia
Came into Tarfu today to speak to a journalist from the local newspaper. Again despite our attempts at emphasising Peace, the Envirnoment etc we got the feeling that the article would feature the fact that we sold our hose, that we live on 14 Euros a day, how much our bikes cost etc etc. Well we'll have to see - but we'll still be at the mercy of who translates it for us!

Richard flicking sand in Swovinski National Park

2006-05-04T22:33:00.000+08:00

How to knacker yourself in one easy lesson!

Day 31 Szczecin, Poland

2006-04-28T23:37:00.000+08:00

Can you believe it – woke up and it’s a beautiful sunny day today.

After we spent the day slouching around in the rain yesterday taking photos of grim buildings with grey sky behind – bet they will look 100 times more beautiful today with a blue backdrop.

The reason I’m complaining is the fact that today is our day for staying indoors and route planning, trying to sort out our Russian visa, updating the website etc!

Grrrr

www.velomad.com

The New Face of Tayto Crisps

2006-04-12T01:45:00.000+08:00

Apparently these are "THEE" crisps.

Any decent Irish person can tell you that.

And who is this years new sexy model....?

About as sexy as the crisps.

Funny Signs in Germany

2006-04-10T21:12:00.000+08:00

Just going through some old photos - this one gave us a lot of amusement when cycling in Germany last year. Saw loads of these.

Constantine's Serenade

2006-04-04T07:19:00.000+08:00

A night in Amsterdam...

Click on the link Constantine's Serenade

A few world news Snippets

2006-03-17T05:08:00.000+08:00

Ok - thought it was about time did a bit of research on someone the countries we are about to visit. Leaving England in a week or so...still haven't applied for a Russian visa - oops.

But whilst looking into this I stumbled across the following...

Bird Flu is a plot by the USA!

Amazing what you find out when you trawl a few cycling blogs isn't it?

What is Moscow News reporting today...

Top Russian Communist Blames U.S. of Using Bird Flu as Biological Weapon

seriously - that's what they are saying - but to be honest, I have no hesitation in believeing the USA powers that be would do such a thing - just don't see what they would benefit out of it. You can read more at
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/03/15/zyuganovbirdflu.shtml

Whilst you are there check out the poll they did asking the average US citzen what their favourite country is - wow aren't we surprised - the UK comes in at 76.4. Now come on - mustn't Blair be pleased all his brown nosing hasn't been in vain.

Lucky French - they are even more unpopular than Russia coming in in 8th place at 45. Maybe they won't have to endure haviong their homeland overrun with Northern American's.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/03/14/pollrussia.shtml

Chinese Photographer Criticised for taking photos of falling Cyclists
Horaaah - for the Chinese - they apprecaite cyclists. But then again I don't think there's any country in the world more appalling to it's cyclists than Britain.

Ananova reported (ok - I admit it back in Decenber last year!) whilst the many apprecaited the Chinese photographers skills they thought it "disgusting" that he had basically waited there until some poor cyclists fell down the pit so that he could get his phtots. You can read about it here

Oh yeah - why are we going to Estonia? A couple of days ago Uuno Siitoja reported running over 10 boars in one day -how many cyclists can he manage I wonder?

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/03/14/driveoverboars.shtml

The Truth About Onions

2006-03-17T04:28:00.000+08:00

So how do you peel onions without crying?

We had are having a discussion about this right now. I'm for the traditional method of not sticking your head over the onion and cut the onion at arms length so the fumes go straight up into your eyes.

Brad came up with a new one on me - apparently he saw it on a science programme. Stick a wedge of lemon in your mouth - the acidity counteracts the fumes.

Neil then came and displayed his peeled and chopped onion - the skin peeled back like a banana but still attached at one end - which gives you something to hold on to whilst you slice vertically and finally horizontally - I think I may have to get a photo - difficult to describe. Anyway - it avoid breaking the membrane hence no fumes.

Anyway one got any comments?

D Day.

2006-03-14T07:11:00.000+08:00

London

Well we had decided before leaving France that we would leave London on the 18th March.

But I know we can't do this date - no way.

Firstly, Richard's camera hasn't been repaired yet, our adapter's for our computer, camera, mp3 players etc are all in France, Evans haven't got our Ortlieb bags back yet, my mother has decided she wants 2 days help with the computer instead of one.... this list just seems to go on and on.

Feeling rather down.

Cycling through the snow at 3am

2006-03-05T11:22:00.000+08:00

Châtellerault, France

Yeti Boots
Well it was a lot easier - the return journey from Eric's. Was that due to the fact that the snow had stopped falling (or whip lashing to be more precise) and the wind had died down - not that this managed to stop me from falling off the bike frequently. Or getting lost - that's the great thing about the countryside isn't it - there's not many roads so if there isn't a mad frog clad in yellow fishing gear on a bike ahead of you for a few minutes you can safely assume you're going the wrong way. We were going up hill on the return of course - but now I had the seat up and had figured out the gears - well on the lower platter anyway.

But the reason that I mention this is because I've discovered the missing element. The vital piece of equipment that I want for our voyage across Siberia. I want them in a way that a child needs a security blanket.

When Richard first proposed me wearing them my simple reaction was complete disbelief.

After 5 minutes of wearing them I never wanted to be parted from them again. Mine by the way were the dark brown yeti style.

I have to be honest - in my excitement I completely forgot to take a photo of them - so this picture has been downloaded from www.beansonline.co.uk so that you can get an idea of what they look like. If any body objects (to me using the picture - I have no doubt someone objects to me wearing something like this - or even owning up to the fact that I wore something like this) let me know and I'll remove the photo ok?

Of course the French have long been enamored with moon boots.

Yes - look at the things - how can the French - who delight in fanning our insecurities (the Brit's that is) about our distinct lack of fashion sense, seriously consider themselves paragon's of the fashion world wearing these things?

I had always wondered about the French obsession with Moon boots - how come this race which inevitably dresses impeccably from head to knee can completely ruin the effect by the inclusion of moon boots in the knee to toe area?

Well now I'm a convert to the yeti boot (that's what I've decided to call them) - the only problem is that any of my friends would laugh at the possible suggestion that any other part of my body was any more fashionably clad!

People's Belief's
It's weird what some people accept isn't it? Eric recited the tale of his face being burnt - and a "healer" taking the burn away by placing her hand on his face.

Everyone atthe table accepted that there was no scientific explanation for this - yet they had no hesitation in believing it.

It was only when I pointed out that whilst there was no scientific explanation as we knew it - it could hardly be difficult to believe if you simply took into account E=mc². Surely if energy can be converted into mass and visa versa - how hard can it be to accept there is logical explanation as to how someone's hand (mass) can remove the heat from a burn (energy)? This sparked things off. Seems no one but me seemed to think that was a satisfactory explanation and a bit of sneering was done at my expense - surely I wasn't suggesting mathematics could explain it? I said not now but surely in the future it would probably be very easy to explain.

Back in Chatellerault - 25th Feb 2006

2006-02-26T05:07:00.000+08:00

Back in Chatellerault - 25th Feb 2006

Slept late - basically until the telephone went at 10am. Had very wierd dreams but can't clearly recall them - guess that's normal - they fell into the nightmare category though that's for sure.

We left Sophie's round about 1pm and it took us about 4 hours to drive to Chatellerault. Just missed Jean Marc by a few minutes.

Valerie called and told us about Jules's comment of the day. She came upon him with his t-shirt down, his nipples exposed. Pointing at her chest he asked "who put those there?"

At Night in the Tent, Zeebruge

2006-01-04T23:39:00.000+08:00

Our first and only night in Belgium

13th Dec 2005 Châtellerault France

2005-12-14T22:32:00.000+08:00

Richard’s a dad!

He came in all excited to tell me that a baby duck had been born.

We decided to call it “Jelly” from the Lemon Jelly song – All the Ducks are swimming in the water.

He rang his dad to ask what exactly he should do – and to our heartbreak – his dad being a typical farmer, explained that the duckling would probably die as it was too cold now. Richard hinted about maybe putting a light out there to keep Jelly warm but that did not go down terribly well. It was carefully explained that the duck would not warrant the cost in electricity and would probably grow up weak.

We went out to take a few photos and to our delight 3 more ducklings appeared! We named them Lemon, Gordo & Plum.

We were sure that Richard’s dad would change his mind now and excitedly called back.

Too no avail.

Jelly died this evening.

We couldn’t obey Richard’s dad.

We went out with a hand-warmer (you know those self heating bags that are to keep your hands warm whilst skiing that last for about 12 hours?) wrapped in a towel. Found the babies and herded them back to their mum and placed them on the towel in the hope they’d survive the night.

Will let you know tomorrow.

Richard and Stani

www.velomad.com

10th Dec 2005 Châtellerault France

2005-12-11T06:16:00.000+08:00

A ferret got another chicken today so Richard locked them away in a little metal hut for the night.

Clearly looking after animals is not Richard’s forte as a lamb died when we were here last Christmas. But Richard’s dad says the one that didn’t die (they were twins & the mother rejected one of them) turned out to be a super stud – clearly he realised he had to perform for 2.

Last night we found a cyclist on the HC who only lives about 40kms from Boulogne. At first he was reluctant to let us stay as he already has 4 other guests that night but when Richard explained that we were cyclists etc he “went to check with his wife”

Sounds an interesting chap as does a cycle ride to the Ukraine to raise funds for children in the Ukraine suffering from radiation problems.

No accommodation to be found. Freiburg, Germany

2005-11-14T13:36:00.000+08:00

What a warm day it seemed to us as we left our hosts in Donauschingen. A quick check of our thermometer indicated it was actually 4 degrees. What? It occurred to us that spending a warm night indoors had tricked us into underestimating the cold - and indeed as we ascended the pass through the foggy Black Forest it dropped to two degrees. It was so foggy in fact that when Richard who had the map, took a left turn I didn't see him and merrily chugged on a couple of kms to the top of the pass. Surprised at not finding him there waiting for me, I continued on downhill for a few more kms. It dawned then that something wasn't quite right. Walkie Talkie to the rescue - only the batteries had run out. Reluctantly removing my 2 sets of gloves and finally extracted the batteries from my front light - too weak - only random static squeaks could be heard. With numbed hands I extracted batteries from my rear light and finally got through to a vaguely panicked Richard who kept repeating "Stani where are you?". We eventually found out way back together and warmed up arguing over who was at fault. At the top again we were above the fog and beautiful sunshine flooded the other side of the valley. We asked a German who had parked his car if he could take a photo of us - too our shock he refused. Still pumped full of adrenaline at having lost each other and our own dispute - we attempted to say something rude but our German wasn't up to it. He clearly thought we were slightly deranged when we started calling him Kartoffel the only insult we could come up with and jumped into his car & hurried away. For those of you whose German is even more appalling than our own Kartoffel means potato.

It was a gorgeous ride down to Freiberg - even if rather cold (I was wearing 2 cycling jersey's, 2 fleeces, an outdoor warm jacket and a Gore-Tex storm jacket and still wasn't comfortable) and we made it to the Extratour in the early afternoon. Out of stock for the tires we wanted, Andreas kindly checked how long it would be until he could get them in stock. Tomorrow! We cheekily asked if we could use the phone to call our prospective hosts - friends of the people we had stayed with in Donauschingen, Richard explained who he was and the phone was promptly put down. Attempting to call back was of no use - the phone had been switched off. We can only assume he'd heard a tale of mad cyclists who call innocent bystanders Katoffel.

Extratour was like entering Santa's Grotto for a cyclist and I will speak more about it tomorrow.

A day of rest. Donauschingen, Germany

2005-11-13T13:19:00.000+08:00

So we've legged it from Vienna, arriving after 10 days and 870km via the Austrian and German Danube (Wien-Passau: 320 km) and Passau-Donauschlingen: 550 km) to Donauschingen, the source of the Danube river. Yesterday was the first day of sunshine (well about half a day) since departing Vienna. Disaster! Richard has just found out Peter Pan peanut butter contains GM peanuts. He is in a real dilemma to know what to do about the last half jar he has in his pannier.

Heading West along the Danube! Vienna, Austria

2005-11-01T13:17:00.000+08:00

Just a quick note for those of you who are wondering what one earth is going on and have been emailing us to ask why we were back in Slovenia.
We found out we needed to go back to London for December. After a day of trying to figure out where we'd actually be in December (ie where we should book tickets from and where could leave our bikes when we flew back) we came up with the idea of cycling back. So that's what we're doing now. We turned around in Dubrovnik (very sadly as we met some great French cyclists on recumbents going in our previous direction that day) and headed North to Slovenia, Austria (one day in Hungary) and now we're in Vienna. Tomorrow we will head west towards Germany and then into France for a couple of weeks before going to London. We'll set off to Russia next year at the end of January (or at least that's what I'm planning. Richard seems to have different ideas!)

Some new photos of Bosnia have been uploaded.

Set Books Free! - Novo Mesto, Slovenia

2005-10-23T13:12:00.000+08:00

Ages ago I remember hearing about www.bookcrossing.com. It's a great concept - someone basically came up with the idea of leaving several thousand books lying around the world for people to find. The finders read them and when finished leave them for someone else to find. Here's how the Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines it:

bookcrossing n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

Our current Hospitality Club host caught us browsing his bookshelf and has given us 2 books to be read and then released into the wild. Vagabonding by Rolf Potts and Ghost Riders by Richard Grant. It's great to have something to read in English again!

DAILY RANT
Just found out from (http://roma.freewebpages.org/ici_vatican.htm) that the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi wants to exempt the Vatican from a I.C.I tax (a municipality tax on buildings that provides 35% of the municipality's income). To do this he needs to change the law. Is this a last desperate attempt to gain some votes? Umm - makes one wonder. Apart from the Catholic Church probably being one of the richest bodies on earth - and the fact that it already receives 3 billion per annum from the Italian public - isn't this rather unfair on all the other religious bodies in Italy which won't be included in this tax exception? According to the LP the country is 84% Roman Catholic, 6% Jewish, Muslim and Protestant. Isn't there enough religious discrimination in this world already?

Saturday, 22nd October 2005, Novo Mesto, Slovenia

2005-10-21T23:37:00.000+08:00

Picnics
Several years ago we gave Richard's parents a picnic hamper. They were very polite, thanking us profusely and put it safely away out of sight. A few years later they visited us in London and we took them to Regents park. It was summertime in London and contrary to what the rest of the world seems to think it was a beautiful sunny day. Everyone was out with their picnic hampers, blankets and champagne glasses. Richard's parents were stunned - finally the penny had dropped about the British style of picnic - and they liked it! To them a picnic was a chuck of bread & cheese grabbed in a car stop whilst on a long journey.

Picnics here seem to be something different again. We were invited to several in our first 2 days in Novo Mesto. This evening we went to one. Barbequed meats, mushroom soup and roasted vegetables abounded. But the main purpose was to drink as much of the first juice (the new wine just harvested) as possible. As we arrived a woman was berating her husband for only bringing 5 bottles along with him! We were instructed to stir the roasting chestnuts with a stick - with instructions that we must drink constantly whilst stirring - otherwise the chestnuts wouldn't be edible. I managed to make escape around 1am but Richard foolishly stayed behind much to his regret the next morning when he had to face his hangover. The evening's entertainment ended with everyone walking over hot coals - in their shoes. Richard didn't want to ruin his shoes and wanted to do it barefoot - luckily our host persuaded him this wasn't a good idea. However the following morning several people were looking ruefully at their burnt out shoes!

www.velomad.com

Friday, 7th October 2005, Sarajevo, Bosnia

2005-10-07T23:37:00.000+08:00

Small Worlds

When we were in Ljubljana a cycling friend of ours told us about a great cyclist website - it turned out to be Alastair Humphreys's.

Alastair Humphreys is another cyclist who is just finishing off his world bicycle tour and heading back to England. He's been cycling to raise funds for Hope and Homes for Children and if you want to look at his very stylish website or donate to the charity you can visit his website here.

Apart from being very impressed with what he's been doing, we also thought we'd mention it just to remind everyone how small the world is. We first heard of Alastair 7 years ago in 1998 when we were cycling in Mexico and he emailed us asking if we could recommend any good flat cycling routes in Mexico. We cheekily responded that "real" cyclists didn't like flat routes. He clearly proved us wrong as he's just about finished his world tour and we're only just starting ours! We certainly never dreamed we'd catch up with him in Sarajevo.

On a wet muddy day in Chile on the Carraterra Austral we had just come over the peak of a hill. Down below us we could see something sparkly and shinny coming towards us. It was a Japanese guy on a tandem - his partner was walking up the incline beside him. After we got over asking ourselves just how did they manage to remain so squeaky clean after several days of rain on a muddy road (we certainly looked like we had had recent mud bathes ourselves) we asked them why she was walking.

He grinned and responded "She is a little bit pessado" (heavy)

After a few minutes of charting great excitement was caused when we mentioned that we had met some other Japanese cyclists a 2 years earlier in Mexico City who had also been cycling on a tandem. Our companions were desperate to know who these cyclists had been so we pulled our address book and found the Japanese address that we had been given a couple of years ago. Our companions eyes grew very wide as they gazed at the book and they started jumping up and down in elation. Of course you've probably guessed - it was them!

www.velomad.com

Tuesday, 27th September 2005, Split, Croatia

2005-09-27T23:37:00.000+08:00

Will be leaving tomorrow to head for Sarajevo - no idea what route to take! Spent yesterday hunting for maps, guidebooks, tyres and most importantly peanut butter. No Schwalbe tyres to be found but to our delight we did find a Ritchley tyre we'd used in Chile & know to be quite sturdy. Absolutely no luck with maps or guidebooks - makes it difficult to plan where we're going! But success was achieved on the peanut butter front - although we bought so many jars it might make our climb to Sarajevo a bit harder than it should be!

www.velomad.com

A Few Photos from Slovenia

2005-09-27T16:57:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 25th September 2005, Split, Croatia

2005-09-25T23:37:00.000+08:00

Just been reading some old emails searching for cycling info on South America. We've come to the conclusion that the UK government should pay us to stay in London because last time we were away it got bombed too.

A friend of our host here proudly informed me that the stone from the island which we could see from our viewpoint overlooking Split was the stone used to build the Whitehouse - so the Croatians are to blame for providing a shelter for Bush!

www.velomad.com

IMG_1010 Rico

2005-07-30T23:27:00.000+08:00

IMG_1010 Rico, originally uploaded by Velomad.

Italy 2005 photos

2005-07-30T22:56:00.000+08:00

(Click on title to start slide show - If you click on the individual photo you might - if you are lucky get description!)

Last Day in Montpellier

2005-03-01T06:45:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow we head off for Morocco. We're getting a ferry from Sete to Tangier and probably won't be on line for a while.

Thanks Lise!

2005-02-19T06:34:00.000+08:00

Yes we're still in Montpellier France
Lise Rihouey is an ANGEL!. She's also Richard's cousin and she has very generously offered to translate this website into French for us. Despite the fact that this webpage is in English more than 50% of people who view this website are from France and they are complaining! It will probably take a month or so to get the French version up but we'll post a note when it's ready. In the meantime Richard's wine notes are in French and you can subscribe to the French newsletters by visiting our Newsletter page.

Back from the Vineyards

2005-02-14T06:33:00.000+08:00

Back in Montpellier. We managed to get the sun for a couple days whilst visiting 3 of Richard's favourite wineries but the weather has turned again and it's raining hard. To see Richard's notes on the wineries visit the Wine Notes page in a few days.

Algerian Visa - Still! Montpellier France

2005-02-09T06:21:00.000+08:00

Montpellier France

Algerian Visa is a complete nightmare. We were intending to head off this afternoon but we've spent the whole day chasing after stuff required for the visa despite the fact we have already been going back and forth and calling for the past 2 weeks to find out exactly what was required. Every time we produced the latest required item we were told something else was necessary. At one point in the afternoon Richard was angrily stating he didn't want to go there that much. After 3 visits back and forth to the consulate, they finally stated we needed to buy tickets for the ferry from Spain. The ferry details they gave us are only valid for summer. We spent the whole day searching on the internet and ringing up different companies to find out who did actually go there. Have decided to go on a mini bike ride to visit some wineries as the Consulate is only open on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

wineries in Morocco

2005-02-08T06:17:00.000+08:00

Where we are - Montpellier France.

Brrr - Richard's been checking out wineries in Morocco - it was snowing there just a week ago. Thought we were heading that way because it was supposed to be warm?

Richard's Godfather

2005-02-07T05:53:00.000+08:00

Ok those of you who know us know that we cannot exactly be described as light travellers. Richard seems to want to enter the Guinness Book of Records for the category "got the most stuff on my bike".
Saw a photo of Richard's Godfather today... now I know where he got it from. Yes he does have a ruck-sac as well as the panniers!

PS We're still in Montpellier, France

Algerian Visa Hassles, Montpellier France

2005-02-06T05:51:00.000+08:00

The Algerian Embassy in Montpellier says we can't get the visa here. Richard is from Châtellerault so he needs to apply in Nantes. Spent the day on the phone ringing Nantes. Eventually got to speak to the Consulate himself who agreed to call Montpellier about it. Was told to call back in half an hour. A couple of hours and several phone calls later we were advised to call Montpellier direct as the Consulate couldn't get through. Really weird as we did straight away (before we got put on hold of course!) Eventually the attaché to Consulate said yes we could come back on Tuesday to apply for visa's but we could not enter Algeria via Morocco. Looks like we'll have to take the boat to Spain from Morocco and then back to catch another boat from Spain to Algeria - grrrr!

Tuesday, 18th January 2005 Montpellier France

2005-01-19T05:47:00.000+08:00

Checking out visa's for Algeria. Doesn't look promising at the moment. Several websites are claiming both land borders with Morocco are closed although we've found a couple that claim "the one between Tlemcen and Oujda is from time to time open"!

Sunday, 16th January 2005 Montpellier France Portos - the most gorgeous and gentle natured dog.

2005-01-17T05:45:00.000+08:00

Staying a while here to get this website prepared and await some parcels. Fattening up is also high on the agenda! Couldn't resist posting a picture of Portos - the most adorable and gentle natured animal possible.

Tuesday, 11th January 2005 Montpellier France

2005-01-12T05:30:00.000+08:00

Arrived today at Richard's sister's bakery. As most touring cyclists dream of bakeries and all you can eat buffets we simply felt that this was the appropriate picture of the day. For those of you in search of a fabulous patisserie the address is Gaël Poivret, 10 Bld Renouvier.