Planning and Panicking

 

Creating a Blog, or is it a Bog

This is the hardest part of my intended adventure . I’m doing it all on my 1900 Remington typewriter which has the ‘l’ missing, so its a bog, not a blog. I wanted to do a blog to give me the discipline of recording my journey, and to help me raise money for an orphanage in Nepal. Please don’t  judge me too harshly, and please laugh at my mistakes.

So what’s the old fool doing .

I’ve been hatching plans for a big cycle ride in Asia for a year now. They have changed many times but have now matured as follows;

Leave  the UK late April with a bike and a wife. (Not natural bedfellows )

Visit  my daughter Lara in Kuala Lumpur  (where she is a teacher) and the three of us go to Sumatra  for a 2 week holiday.

Return to Kuala Lumpur, where showing a lot of surprise I open one of our boxes and discover a BIKE. “Oh well I might as well use it now I’ve brought it”. I put it back in its box and fly to Mandalay from where my cycling holiday starts.

Leaving Mandalay,  I head into India and up to Darjeeling. This is where the route gets very bumpy. I then head into Nepal to Kathmandu where I wilL visit an orphanage that I’m raising funds for (See Charity).

I then head east until I go back into India and the hills get even bigger (17000ft)

If all’s gone to plan, and it won’t have, I then fly out of New Delhi  in early September.

Jan’s ( my wife’s ) main concern at this time is whether I’ll  have washed and put on clean clothes before I board  the plane.  It could be a very empty plane.

Equipment or things you don’t  love

My philosophy as to what to take when you travel, particularly  to poor countries, is

“DON’T TAKE ANYTHING YOU CAN’T  AFFORD TO LOSE “

So let’s start with the bike

Once upon a time there was a young teenager called Ashley Buck (my son) who rushed downstairs on his birthday and there to his delight was a shiny new bicycle. That was over 20 years ago and after a varied life ranging from visits to the pub and Ashley’s first triathlon, it ended up in my garage enjoying retirement. Wakey wakey!! Have I got a surprise for you. The bike has been stripped down to its ballbearings and rebuilt including rims. Replacement parts, where necessary,  have come from my scrapbin including a 25 year old Brooks leather saddle.

Approximate value  of bike £20.00 ($30.00)

Now if Mr Shimano is the technical heart of the bike then the wicker basket is its soul

The basket was built by 82 year IVOR HANCOCK from the Somerset Levels in Somerset, the county where I live in England. The Somerset Levels are a swamp and were made famous when in the 9th century,  King Alfred the Great, hid from the invading Danes, regrouped and drove them out of England. The reeds that grew in the swamp then, are the same reeds that have been used to make my basket. When I’m strugling up a mountain in the Himalays feeling homesick, it will be my wicker basket that I will turn to for comfort. Besides if I don’t have a wicker basket, that I can have deep meaningful conversations with, I feel I might go mad.

Now sorry Ladies, my bike will be a lycra free zone, and all my clothes will be conventional (normal).

I’m taking a small tent and my quality control team have tested it exhaustively, and the chief tester, Daisy, assures me that even in heavy rain she can eat a whole box of biscuits wihout them going soggy.