From Slovenia to Bosnia via the coast of the Adriatic Sea.

After spending a lot longer than I originally planned around Venice I decided to make tracks and and try and speed it to the Croatian coast. This proved a little too effective as I nearly rode from Italy, through Slovenia and into Croatia in one afternoon...

After the French Riviera we sped through the tiny tax haven of Monaco. Joe and I are having a little competition between us both to see how many tramp points we can score throughout the trip, but in Monaco it was equal. As we st on a wall eating stale bread and crisps we watched people with their handbags, fancy cars, entitled children, off-shore bank accounts and cocaine, feeling a little out of place. There wasn't much there for us through the whole of the Riviera. Very rich, heavily built up coast line doesn't bode well for two travellers on a tight budget trying to wild camp. One night we had to take refuge next to a sewage works, whispering the entire time behind a wall as families walked passed. Classy.

 Again... sorry for the vast spaces in between updates. One reason for this is that we've both been extremely busy, and there isn't much down time. I think this is the farthest distance I've covered in the shortest time. Usually I like to take a break for a while between the distances, but here, mainly due to the encroaching seasons, there isn't much time.
 Another reason, and I think the main one too, is that my poor little netbook is now on it's last legs and it's now become nothing short than a complete ball ache to try and get anything done on it. To give it its credit it has been slumped in the back of my bags for around 20,000 miles of overland travel, over mountains, deserts, through jungles, freezing temperatures, searing heat, monsoons, numerous crashes off-road where it's taken the full weight of the bike and one trip into the Congo River (in a waterproof bag that had a hole eaten into it by ants) so it hasn't done bad. It does need retiring. It's definitely time to invest in a decent tablet and/or a phone with a good camera. Trying to work with this just isn't feasible. Nevertheless, here's a collection of some of the best photo's from the remaining weeks in France.

Shoes packed away in humid forest, so it's boots with pants. Camp or a little bit Scottish with the kilt boxers?

Sorry for the lack of updates. It's been purely a case of enjoying this this beautiful country so much. 

We're currently in the south of France in a town called Agen, staying with Marion, a friend I met in Vietnam as we were trapped in a hostel in Hoi An due to basically, a monsoon.

Life has become a lot more comfortable, weather-wise. No more wearing all our clothes as soon as we wake up or get on the bike, and no more worrying about having to dry out all our gear. I think on our last day in England it was 11c, and over the past few days it's reached 36c. That's quite a big increase and we've really felt it.

We've slowly made our way south, doing about 100 miles a day when on the bikes and getting into the rhythm of travelling with each other. It's going smoothly so far.

We stayed with our first host, Kevin, in Poitiers a few days ago. By then we had spent a full 7 days on the bike and we needed a rest day or two. Quite a lot of drinking and not enough sleep ensued, and making friends and enjoying a town to its full potential was definitely had.

We're staying in Agen until Tuesday, our two-week anniversary since we left home, and by then we would have covered our 1000 mile mark. From there we will ride to Italy and then into Slovenia. We're both really looking forward to reaching Eastern Europe.

Here is a gallery with some of the best photo's taken over the last week or so in France.

Our camp in a little by-road in between two fields. I don't really need to be reminded, but it's to great to realise that you can camp basically anywhere when on the road.

Another journey has begun.

We're a little late in getting round to this. Our original plan was to have set off around the middle of May, but circumstances (Joe) delayed us. This is my fourth long-distance trip and it's the first time I've set off with someone. Joe's a good friend from the ye olde days and despite a shaky beginning I think it's going to be a welcome change.

Our original plan was to ride to the Caspian Sea and back, giving ourselves three months to do the round trip on our 125's. I'm not sure if that's going to happen now due to the delay. We still might get there, we might not. We may decide to just explore Eastern Europe more extensively instead of rushing to cover distance. Who knows...

We left four days ago and it has been pretty abysmal so far. Little bikes on big, busy roads in the rain with a deadline to catch the ferry. Cold and tiring. We're both extremely under-slept. I only had around two hours sleep last night and maybe 17 hours in total over the past five days. I'm a terrible sleeper generally but this has been pretty bad. Yesterday we arrived in Poole and decided to stay at a campsite rather than try and wild camp. We had an initial look, even did a Theresa May and rode through some fields of wheat, but the rain and the six o'clock rise meant that we just buckled into a little comfort... We still cooked dinner in the rain and it got to the point where it felt like we couldn't get any wetter. But hey, we're in France now and the sun is shining, our clothes are drying, the roads are quieter and we have no deadlines. I always hate riding out of the UK, and I'm glad it's behind us.

We've managed to find a nice spot to have an early night, tucked away behind a hedge in some farmers field. It feels great writing this on my netbook in my tent. Tomorrow we'll continue to ride south into the warmth and hopefully I won't lose my mind due to sleep deprivation.

I like baguettes.

Circumnavigating Indochina on a Honda Win 110cc. 11/11/15 - 23/03/17

Friday, 18 November 2016

Vietnam

So, it's been a while! Things change and don't always go to plan, but I am now back on the road again and currently in Vietnam. I arrived in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) around a week ago and plan to travel around the SE Asian region until next spring. Besides everything else it was a pleasure to leave the English November snow behind and arrive in the balmy warmth of the tropics - my hair's still wet from swimming in the warm South China sea as I write this!

I left the chaos of Saigon two days ago. I was bed-ridden with pharyngitis just before I was due to get on the sixteen hour plane journey here - which wasn't the best situation to be in! And I found the seven hour time difference ridiculous to get used to. I usually don't sleep before 02:00 am, and when that's nine in the morning here it meant that I barely slept for three days. Yet Valium cures all. Lovely pharmacies.

Still, it was shockingly easy to find a bike out here during my four days in Saigon. Below is my little beauty; a 'Honda Win'. I'm pretty certain that the chassis is the only remaining Honda part of the bike, but it's more or less impossible to find a manual bike like this with an original Honda engine. Although it does have a Lifan 110cc, and for those in the know these have a pretty good reputation as far as Chinese engines go - and so far it's shaping up to be pretty good! After literally three quarters of a day haggling I managed to pick it up for around £250.

This is just a quick update to say that some weird stuff will be happening with my site over the coming weeks, including updates and all. I have a new design in mind, and I need to configurate it so each trip is easy to access on their own. This goes for photo galleries too. It's all in preparation for the upcoming journey around Europe, The Greater Middle East, and Central and Western Asia. Who knows, maybe you'll enjoy them...

There shall also be some 'real' updates too that I didn't have time to writ or edit whilst I was on the road. I'll try and separate them all logically!

(They're also all going to appear above this post also, confusingly.)