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Two months to the day since I rolled those last kilometers into Phnom Penh, I have had quite some time to digest the incredible experiences of my epic cycling adventure. It’s hard to put such a journey into words as each and every day was so different from the previous one, the terrain, the weather, the people, often the food. It’s hard to summarise such a journey, in fact, I don’t think I need to! I think what will stay with me the longest is just how incredibly similar we humans are, everywhere, what we don’t know about each other we are scared of, this is the cause of so much misunderstanding. Traveling gives us the perfect opportunity to know what we don’t have to be scared of. I’m often asked how it felt to arrive, to reach  my goal. As I cycled those narrow and busy roads through the buffalo lined, rice paddies and on to my destination I guess I felt mostly sadness that the adventure was over, no massive sense of achievement, just the end of the road….till next time at least.
I hope that you have been able to share at least a portion of the joy that this trip has brought me, certainly the comments I have received from so many have helped keep me going. I have loved hearing from you all! Let the next next adventures begin….

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Six people sit around laughing as one woman tries to communicate with me. I quickly come to realise that beards and long hair are certainly not attractive to Cambodians, as this is the second time today that I have been told this. As I get back on my bike with a smile on my face and wave them goodbye, I realise that this is it, just 50 km from Phom Penh, I probably won’t have any further such interactions, the end of the road has come.

Since leaving Budapest 200 days before, I have cycled almost 9,800 km in 12 countries requiring 6 visas, 10 land border crossings, once passing through a restricted area and twice changing from the right-hand side of the road to the left. I have pedaled up 12 mountain passes over 3,900 m and the highest being 5,500 m in India and down to -200 m in Iran in temperatures ranging from 45 to -10 degrees

Celsius. Rain has soaked me on just 3 days of biking and snow has fallen twice. I have seen 3 of the remaining 76 soon to be extinct Irrawaddy fresh water dolphins in the Mekong, and observed the massive damming, deforestation and mining operations which are leading to their demise.

Dogs have chased me on over 30 occasions but never seriously attacked. I have rolled past (or over) thousands of dead snakes, lizards, dogs, cats, horses and donkeys, all victims of speeding cars.

Dust storms in Iran caused by over exploitations of water resources in Iraq chocked the air and the residents of Tehran and made breathing difficult. I have inhaled for sure enough exhaust fumes from poorly maintained trucks and burning rubbish to make my lungs look like a smokers.

On a near suicidal dash to Istanbul I covered 162.6 km in one day and in India 7 km of arduous uphill was enough for a semi-rest day. Roaring tail winds propelled me more than 100 km across the desserts of Iran with little effort while brisk headwinds in Thailand kept my brakes on for a tough 70 km slog to the border. I broke the speed limit on 26 occasions, usually as I screamed down a hill and through road works.

My body burned every last ounce of fat as my weight plummeted by 10 kg. My legs grew while every bit of exposed skin turned brown. My beard and hair grew out to create the genuine caveman look which was enough to send small children scurrying in fright.

I had two accidents, once in Serbia where my pedal was damaged and had to be replaced and the second in Thailand where I had to pay for a damaged car and my rear view mirror got smashed. Beyond that the bike sustained little damage with 3 flat tires and a set of brake blocks, 3 new drink bottle holders and 2 bottles of chain oil being the only required spare parts. However, for others, I have built a rack from sticks, fixed a split rim with twigs and hose clamps, pumped tires, replaced spokes, adjusted seats and brakes, sewed up a torn tire and repaired a broken chain. 

I consumed up to 7 normal meals a day and burned about 1.2 million calories of energy all washed down with around 600 litres of water.

I cycled with 28 other cycle tourists from 16 countries and met a further 80 or so.

I took over 9,000 photographs and logged more than 500 GPS positions.

I have been in the national newspaper in Serbia, TV in Cambodia and in a magazine in Iran. I received a gift from a Chinese army general and met the captain of the Bulgarian Air force.

Of the first 63 nights of accommodation, I paid for just 13. I slept about 40 nights in my tent, 16 nights with CouchSurfers, 3 with friends and the remainder in guesthouses, hostels or hotels.

I have listened to 15 languages and observed the subtleties and practices of 8 religions. I have taught 2 English classes in Laos and attended 5 others in Serbia, Iran and Cambodia. I have visited 2 ancient civilisations dating back more than 1,000 years Iran and Cambodia. 

I completed an 80 km bike race on my touring bike in which I finished in the top twenty in a time of 2 hours 21 minutes with an average speed of more than 29 km/h.

And, most importantly, I have met hundreds of wonderful people and enjoyed every minute of it!

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I struggle to concentrate on the road as small voices call from every direction, “bye bye”, “sabaidee” or as I reach into Cambodia “hello, bye bye”. I try to wave to each one like the queen on parade (or King maybe). Sometimes I have to strain my eyes to find the little voice coming from a tree, behind a bush or on top of a buffalo. They are anywhere and everywhere. Sometimes only a small hand can be seen above the window sill as the little munchkin peeks through the cracks in the wall boards. Where this enthusiasm comes from, I don’t know. The parents of the smallest children hold their hands to make them wave as I whizz past. It sure makes a passing cyclist feel welcome, though for me I have found it hard to get beyond this and really interact with the people, I feel too different or perhaps to alien to them. Some kids run in fright at the sight of such a hairy man on a bicycle, only to wave from a safe distance. Those adults who do speak English are not easy to engage and those that don’t quickly give up with the sign language or other means of communication. For me, SE Asia has been an incredibly easy place to be, almost to easy with nicely spaced guest houses and endlessly available food and drinks. I’m happy to have had company for most of my time here as it makes life as an observer more enjoyable. I think years of tourism have meant that all foreigners are seen just as rich people who can afford to pay for whatever. To some extent this is true, though with an interest in the people and places far beyond this, I will leave a little sad that I wasn’t able to find a door leading very far into their lives. This certainly is partly my fault as I have not made a huge effort to try to stay with them as I have done elsewhere in the past. But my confidence to do so usually steams from a feeling of mutual interest which I have not felt here. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that travel is not a major part of life and culture, so understanding what I am doing and why I am doing it is very difficult for them to understand.
With just a couple of days to go before I reach Phnom Penh, I start to feel the pinch of the end of an amazing adventure, my thoughts start to gather as I try to put my feelings into words.

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My hands desperately reach for the brakes, I pull hard but it’s too late, I swerve right but my left handlebar makes contact followed soon after by me as I hit the back of the vehicle hard. I quickly come to a complete stop, my main concern is my bike at this point. One of the j-bars hangs by the handlebar tape, the mirror is gone. In a bit of shock I speak to the driver before getting off the road. I find the broken mirror on the ground some meters away.
The tail light on the truck is smashed, I point it out to the driver and try to figure out how much I should pay him. 500 baht? Not enough? Hmmm, ok, $20? No, he indicates 3000 baht. Finally we settle on $40 and 500 baht. Only then does the driver point out blood on my arm and leg. It’s nothing major, I realise how lucky I am, could have been worse.
Racing across Thailand at about 25km/h, I look down for a second as a pick-up truck pulls in and stops in front of me, a perfect recipe for disaster.
With less than 2 weeks of cycling left to reach Phnom Penh, I start to feel that I’m reaching the end of this epic journey and the realities of normal life creeping back into my consciousness. But there are still 1000 km of road ahead which I will enjoy every minute of!

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“Falang, dey lib dis howd…” My brain works overtime, falang means foreigner so that would translate to be: “Foreigners, they live this house.”
The old mans bare pot belly wobbles as we walk slowly in the direction his stubby first finger points. My mission to find the home of a couple who invited me to stay some days earlier has been successful, but they are not home.
An hour or so earlier after a 115 km day I set off the centre of Vientiane to see what I could make of the poorly hand drawn map in my notebook. It wasn’t long before I was lost, I had all but given up when a building that could only be of Soviet origin appear, as the Russian Embassy was THE landmark to find on my map, I circled to building to find confirmation. Sure enough this huge monstrosity, perhaps the biggest embassy I have every seen (apart from the US consulate in Istanbul) was, in fact, the Russian Embassy. Right, where to now? An ex-pat couple out with the dog walked me the right road, just 150 m to go according to the map, perfect. Not so easy, I quickly realise that the 3 building on my diagram are in fact 3 of at least 100 house in the street. By now the last light has faded, I must try to call. A girl prepares something on a small wooden table by the roadside, I stop and ask (or point in such a manner) if she’s colouring her hair, no, stupid question, she’s bleaching her skin. I ask after foreigners, a close examination of my map later and a phone appears, the number is called but no answer. I search myself some more, a motorbike appears next to me and the boy indicates I should go back with him.
The pot bellied man, along with a swarm of kids, appears explaining how he’s studied English for 25 years, but has all but forgotten it. I understand something anyway. As I wait, they call the number again and again, a girl tries to explain with less than 5 words of English that her middle aged friend is single if I’m interested? I kindly decline. Finally, I’m taken to another place where a man speaks to me in good English explaining where I should find them, we walk in that direction.
Soon after, we arrive at the house which I thought was it 2 hours before, but wasn’t sure. To my disappointment noones’ home. I thank the entire street of locals for all their help and bike back towards town. As my eyes become heavy after a long day, I have a huge grin on my face just thinking about how much fun such a small thing, like finding a house, can be.

The photos are in a random order because of a virus I got on my USB key in Thailand.

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The sound of loud rock music fills my ears, I round the bend and to my surprise find a band practicing loudly in a small bamboo hut near the road. Loudspeaker, guitars, drums, keyboards and the band are all squeezed into the tiny room, in this very primitive village, it’s quite a sight, especially before 8 in the morning!
As always, the children line the streets as we pass through every village to wave and shout "bye…bye…bye", the kids here are one step more enthusiastic than the Vietnamese children, they can spot a foreigner at 200 m from before they can walk, and begin frantically waving when I still need binoculars to see them. It is a wonderful habit and sure make it fun to roll through this beautiful country.
Two days of boat rides took us from the dusty roads of the north to Luang Prabang where you could happily indulge in all the comforts of home and eat like a king from the cuisine of almost any country (for quite a price I might add). The bike was calling louder than the beautiful baguettes on the street corner so it was time to again pack my bags and head for the final hills of the journey, and quite some hills they were too! Never ending it seemed, but after 10 km hanging onto the back of a truck, the monotony of 6 km/h disappeared as I hung on for dear life trying to avoid potholes and the roadside as we cruised uphill. Sharp corners would put me into the ditch so I had to let go and pedal frantically to regain my hand hold on the truck. With a soar arm and a smile I gave the driver a toot on my air horn (purchased in China, and the best thing since sliced bread) and a wave and set about pushing myself to make it up the last km’s to the town ahead.

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Unconscious and bleeding heavily, two people carry the limp, helpless body into the street, a motorbike comes to a halt and she is quickly loaded on with a third person to behind to hold her upright. Just moments before as I drifted off to sleep I was woken by the sound of footsteps outside the door which was soon followed by a very loud banging sound, like a door slamming, followed by a second, third and fourth bang each one more aggressive than the last. The sound of breaking glass fills us with fear, what the hell is going on? People are talking very loudly, arguing it seems. I edge towards the curtained window to peek through the slit to try to  get an idea of the situation. We are already regretting having chosen the cheapest hotel in town. Perhaps the pink lighting and the large ‘Massages’ sign just behind should have been a warning, though this is all too common in this part of the world. We want to leave but it feels more unsafe to open the door and risk getting involved than holding tight and hoping things settle down. The voices  continue for quite some time and through a slit in the door I see a man hastily packing things into a bag, from the other window I see 5 or 6 people climb into a taxi and leave, finally we are able to breath easy and get some sleep in preparation for another tough day ahead.
Vietnam came and went all to quickly, we were welcomed and fair welled by endless mountains with not much relief for tired cyclists in between either. The small villages were brimming with wonderful, beaming children all yelling “bye bye” continuously like wee stuck records, each one too cute to not acknowledge. The adults were for the most part happy to give us at least a smile and a wave, or invite us for a thimble sized shot of the rather potent local ‘wine’.
The immense diversity of these mountain people was evident from the ever changing pallet of colours and styles of the women’s outfits, each one of spectacular intricacy and decadence, painstakingly handmade with utmost care. The advent of modern materials is replacing these works of art with printed substitutes as well as more modern but far less faltering attire. The men and children have all but abandoned these traditional clothes.
The all too familiar site of massive earthworks for hydro dams made for two rather dirty, dusty cyclists at the end of each day and made me a little sad to think that all these old villages we were passing through will soon be drowned beneath the ‘progress’.
The catastrophic loss for the French and Vietnamese armies during the wars in the 50′s made Dien Bien Phu an ideal place for a day off to explore the remnants of war and to ponder how it is possible that just half a century later we can freely visit this place and be welcomed so warmly. The 38,000 lives lost seem all so pointless now as we sit at the border checkpoint with the officers on their lunch break and sip tea from tiny porcelain tea cups, ready for more adventures in Laos.

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The bed bounces as the grating sound of poorly sung karaoke seeps through every corner of the room to make sleeping a far off dream. This relatively expensive Chinese hotel room provides little comfort to tired cyclists.
Chinese hotel rooms will have, without fail, cable TV, free soap, comb and shampoo, dirty walls and condoms. Bath tubs, air conditioning, vibrators to quote: ‘make your pleasure with or without your sex partner’, buzzing switches, mosquitoes, nightclubs and noisy sex next door are all part of the surprise when you get to the room (or try to sleep). The price varies wildly depending on who you ask, what is written on the wall is never the actual price and the price has no connection to the quality of the room, this is China!
A month in China was enough to see that this is a country full of history and cultural diversity. I had been a bit unsure about cycling here as I had heard lots of stories of communication difficulties and hassles with hotels etc. This certainly wasn’t the case for me. People reacted quite differently to a hairy white guy, many just stared as if I wasn’t human, these people usually reacted to a wave or hello. It became a bit of a game to try to guess who would  respond to my “Ni hau” (Hello) and those “or nots” who chose to ignore me and leave me wondering what they were thinking as I whizzed past. The Children were shy but wonderful as always, and if you could break the ice, which didn’t always happen, were very curious and generous with their affection.
China was a wonderful combination of good food, good people and very tough cycling. I hope to return some day for more.

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A whistle from above brings us to a halt. We turn to see the old man waving us back, the road we are on isn’t right and we must descend the steep zigzag track to the brown, fast flowing river below. Carefully negotiating each corner so as not to loose our bikes down the steep slope, we reach the sandy river bank below. The old man calmly sweeps the area around a small room carved out of the cliff while a small baby in a sling on his back follows us with his eyes. He indicates for us to wait for the ferry to come. Meanwhile on the far bank, a horse is loaded on the rusty boat before pushing off from a safe landing place. The current carries the boat swiftly downstream until the roar of the engine brings it around and back up the where we wait. We load ourselves and the bikes and pull out into the current. The thump thump of the engine is all familiar sound of the standard Chinese engine.
With a scrape and crunch we arrive at the far side, our bike are unloaded onto a rock ledge with a near impossible access way leading to the washed out road above. We portage the bags and bikes in several goes across the boulders before pushing the 2 km up to the road above. Tiny lizards dart here and there as we disturb their peace. The rock strewn track indicates the infrequency with which this crossing is used.
We are now entering the Tiger Leaping Gorge with an incredible 2500 m or more between the peaks of the surrounding mountains and the raging torrents of the river below. After years of work, a road has successfully been blasted into the shear cliffs making for a great days ride along the length of the gorge.
The mountains ease back to rolling hills as terraced farmland takes over. Harvest time is in full swing as we loose altitude, fields are filled with workers harvesting, threshing and winnowing rice to feed the nation. Men run with huge bags to catch the abundant crickets between the fields, women replant  the next crops while men carry huge bundles of rice stalks to the roadside. It is like watching an ant colony from the outside, everyone is highly skilled at the task at hand and teamwork brings the food to the table. It’s an incredible sight which stretches for hundreds of kilometers of the ride. I fell small and insignificant as my mind projects this incredible amount of activity to the entire nation where some 800 million farmers feed the soaring population of 1.3 billion in the same way.
After all this I had a relaxing week with old Chinese colleagues that I worked with in Sweden at their research lab at a military hospital in Chongqing. I was treated like royalty during a wonderful week of good food, good company tough table tennis matches.

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Hands waving and pointing in the picture book gives us little more than that we should follow the man on the motorbike who will show us a place to camp which is near the ferry, or so we understand it. We struggle to maintain pace with him as we pass cows pulling heavy trailers of corn stalks, ladies tending their herds, paddies laden with ready to be harvested rice and school kids yelling the all to familiar “Hello” which, along with “bye bye” are the only English words any countrysiders speaks in China. The road turns to a dirt track then road again as we take numerous short cuts, where are we going? All will work out I tell myself. We pull down a small lane and pass under a persimmon tree, I notice a small sign saying Guesthouse in English. We are shown a simple but beautiful room with a balcony looking out over the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge in the distance, incredible! Before we know it tea is poured and fresh, juicy pomegranates are placed in front of us. Available everywhere, this unusual fruit has quickly become a favourite snack here. We ask the price and are told 1 and 5, ok, 150 then? The man draws with one finger on his open palm, 15 yuan each, just US $2 or so. The previous night we spent 200 yuan for an incredibly noisy room in the crowded tourist city of Lijang.The advice we had been given on the roads was great but did not take into account the magnitude and frequency of the hills along the way. With limited time, we again flagged down a passing pickup and caught the last rays of sun hitting the fields through the dusty windows the
ever of the vehicle as it raced towards Ninglang. One less than happy, but not dead pig and several close calls with dogs later, we were again on two wheels in total darkness at an intersection somewhere. Speculating as always, we tried to predict where we’d be in an hour as we rolled through dark streets past card playing shop keepers and
barking dogs. Our speculation, for once, was correct as we tucked up into bed after another unknown but delicious meal. The landscape became lush and green as water cascaded down mountains sides to huge, brown rivers in the valleys below. Teeth rattling as we descended again on cobbled roads made it seem possible that we’d reach
our destination, but that was only a dream. As the light faded and the barking dogs didn’t, we searched for a place to camp, cliffs and drops left little flat land for anything, only that which had been manipulated into terraced rice paddies, but these were far and and cultivated. At last a rocky outcrop appeared close to the road, we gingerly sett up camp trying not to put too many holes in anything on the endless sharp rocks. A man and his goats observed and left us in peace. Lijang hit us in the face with hundreds of thousands of camera happy tourists wandering the picturesque streets of this ancient city amongst unhappy looking locals who appear less than pleased with having to dress up in traditional costumes each day to create a Disneyland like atmosphere where everything is exactly how it ‘should’ be. For sure a beautiful place, it’s hard to, in the famous words of the Lonely Planet, ‘soak up the atmosphere’ of this place when meter long camera lenses (mine included) clutter each scene and crowds gather in such volumes that you must pick your way through, careful not to stand on any toes. As with any such place, head one street east or west from the main drag and you find a quiet empty street to
yourself, but this is short respite from the madness. Pedaling north out of there offered quick relief until we reached the toll gate where we were obliged to pay not only a fee for passing through ‘a natural area’ but, would you believe and 8 euros just for visiting Lijang! Now we know that it is Disneyland. In China nature is canned and sold as a consumer product. It is not possible to experience it first without paying someone something. This creates an expectation of perfection, natural wonders are even modified to make them ‘more beautiful’. Visitors centers in the natural areas are packed with bus loads of domestic tourists all vying to have their photos taken next to the man made rocks and water
features while the real nature is left more or less unnoticed. Walkways, viewing platforms and obtrusive signs naming individual features all make for the perfect picture while creating a tangible gap between what really is nature and the people. Luckily there are hundreds of authentic villages and beautiful forests and mountains to make up for the Chinese way of seeing nature which differs so greatly from my own. As the road descends  towards. The Tiger Leaping Gorge we are treated to unforgettable views with
incredible interactions between sunlight, clouds and a multi coloured landscape, real nature.

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