Crossing the Black Sea

Nellie ready to board

Our excitement levels were high when we were told that we were booked on the cargo ship from Poti, Georgia. Destination: Varna, Bulgaria. 50 hours on the high(ish) seas to save poor old Nellie over 1000 miles of driving.

This promised to be no standard passenger ferry experience. How exciting!

This sentiment soon dissipated when we realised how slowly time passes on a huge cargo ship travelling at the breakneck speed of 12mph.

That line across the middle

It transpires that we were the only passengers wanting to sail from Georgia to Varna and Nellie was cargo item #3 of 3.

It was like being on a ghost ship, crewed by 40 friendly Bulgarians.

This is a big ship. Having walked the length of the cargo deck on numerous occasions I can testify that it is 233 paces long. Try counting this out the next time you are out for a walk and you'll get a sense of its size.

1033, 1034, 1035...

The primary entertainment is meal times and for the meat eater this is indeed a rare moment of excitement. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for a vegetarian - cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thank goodness Dave isn't lactose-intolerant.

So what does one do to pass the time? Here's what we came up with:

• Walk all decks several times a day. The lower deck being 490 paces in circumference so three circuits of that soon adds to the step count, which is the maximum tolerable before you collapse from engine-fume asphyxiation.
• Have numerous showers a day hoping that with each use the towels become pliable. Cargo ship towels are a natural exfoliant and scrub away your hard-won tan with every use.

• 

  Peace after the storm

  Instead of a razor, use tweezers to remove leg hair. Stop when one half leg later you finally appreciate the ridiculousness of this activity (Jo's leg, not Dave's).
• Watch four episodes of the infuriatingly plodding The Handmaid's Tale. Then give up in preference for a quiet few hours of Solitaire or staring at the wall.
• Read. Read. Read.

A violent thunderstorm kept us, and the crew, awake for the entire second night, which helped to mix things up.

And so we arrived safely, and relatively sane, we think.

> More photos of the crossing

India - some good bits

Backpacking in northern India is not for the faint-hearted. We cut short our intended stay from three months to five weeks for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with pollution, filth, poverty and constant loud noise. To be fair, there was also probably an accumulation effect from three months in Egypt, Sri Lanka and Burma.

Lest you think that we hated India, we really didn’t; here are some random highlights:

The nectar of the sub-continent

The best tea is behind bars, Jo says

The first encounter with Indian tea can be startling, especially if you are of the PG Tips and no sugar persuasion.

Chai is served in small cups that look mean compared to the stout British mug. But your first sip confirms that the amount is just right. It is extremely sweet, very milky and spiced. It is often made with no water at all, making it essentially a hot, gingery, tea milkshake. And it is a wonderful thing, particularly on a freezing morning in the Himalayan foothills: one slug provides enough mojo to get you dressed, out the door and headlong to the first Buddhist temple.

Enter the dragon

Calm, calm...

The Taj Mahal was built as a homage to an adored woman. Ironic then that entry into the complex seems expressly designed to infuriate… women.

Waiting over 40 minutes in their queue, their eyes narrowing, the women watch the men blithely sauntering to the front of the men-only queue.

When the ladies finally get to the front, the mystery is laid bare: the men have five security booths, the women, one.

Only after a good ten minutes venting to your husband about the ludicrousness of this scenario can you gaze in wonder and fully appreciate the grandeur of the Taj Mahal which – clichéd but true - no photo can capture.

All is forgotten, if not forgiven.

Corpses on fire

The sacred cows like to warm themselves by the flames

There is a positive side to this. Bear with us.

Over 200 bodies a day burn down to ash by the Ganges in the city of Varanasi. They are on wooden pyres open to view by everyone, and if you choose to look you will see everything imagineable.

It is horrific at first, but our tour guide artfully set it in context, and by the time we left the city we appreciated the practical Hindu take on the mortal coil. There’s nothing like seeing a son set light to his mum’s corpse or stokers snapping an errant leg back into the flames to understand that these really are empty shells. The important bit has clearly died or gone elsewhere.

OK, not the greatest fun, but as memorable as it gets.      

Fun with trains

Jo wisely hogging the bottom bunk on the train to Agra

A friend insists that the trains are the best thing about India – and indeed they are funny in a Mr Bean kind of way. Glossing over their punctuality, here’s some entertainment they provided us:

We learned not to assume that the B1 sleeper carriage you’ve been assigned is actually the right B1. There can be more than one. So before you turf out the poor sleeping occupants of your bunks, best to walk the length of the train and find more B1 carriages... maybe even yours.

If you have bagged a coveted lower bunk, be prepared in early morning to find a stranger from an upper bunk casually sitting beside your feet waiting for the rest of his family to come and join him and sit on you.

Snacks and chai are continuously, vocally on offer. At the start you shy away from the exotic options and stick to what you know: bags of crisps. Familiarity and overconfidence eventually tip you to bolder choices: "Yes sir, I will have two old newspaper cones of that weird crispy thing with onions, tomatoes and lime all mixed together by your fair hand." Which leads neatly on to…

Dave’s dodgy constitution

Dave re-enacts that first night, at the Chandigarh Stone Garden

Dave got a bit ill. Delhi Belly crept up on him in the dead of night and remains lurking within him to this day.

Fortunately we have a friend well read in diseases which target careless travellers and he supplied a hit-list of suspects to eliminate. It isn't food poisoning. It isn't giardia. It isn't amoebic dysentery and, Dave insists, it is not hypochondria. The investigation continues.

On its own this condition would be handicap enough but it coincided with a sudden onset of what the Beano would describe as Lumbago, caused by bending over to pick up a shoe. Doubly unfortunate because the event coincided with embarkation on a 13-hour, very bumpy bus ride.

The upshot of all this is that Jo is now even shorter, her spine compressed two inches by the valiant job of carrying both 15kg rucksacks from bus/train to station over a two-week period while Dave healed. Another reason Dave loves her.

Too much to report

We wrote more diary entries here and took more photos than in any other country. India is as astonishing as people say.

But there’s no point trying to relay everything we have seen and done in a blog post, and certainly not over a pint. It’s all memories primarily of interest to us, which we will more than happily share with you when you decide to go!

Go here for our best photos and videos

Reasons to visit Burma in 2019

From a tourist's perspective Burma has a vibe like Sri Lanka's: genuinely friendly, simultaneously laid-back and energetic, and on the road to recovery from horrific recent events. The memories here are raw, and it ain’t all over yet, but you know that some locals are loving seeing tourists for the first time since the start of World War II.

Where it all Bagan

Unless you are of a more adventurous disposition, we suggest you hold fire on a visit. Why? Because getting anywhere takes an age as the roads are still being sealed (the commonest roadside sight is villagers breaking rocks). Hotel demand sometimes exceeds supply, which sends prices up. Several parts of the countries are off-limits to tourists. And standards generally need to come up a notch or two.

Here are some reasons why we think you should eventually come. If it's not obvious, we loved the place.

The people

No bribery was involved in this pose

While generalising about nationalities is something we normally discourage... we found everyone in Burma cheerful, guileless, hospitable and polite, seasoned with a dash of mischief. The little children in particular are imprinted on our memory: their exuberance on seeing a couple of sweaty white foreigners was a wonderful thing.

We were met with two-handed high fives and enthusiastic greetings of  "Bye!!"  wherever we went. Never a request for money, sweets or even pens.... just the unadulterated joy of an exchange with Whiteys. In less tourist-visited areas this resulted in us assuming a Santa Claus persona whereby kids would rush from their homes just to wave and catch a glimpse of our talismanic forms lolloping by.

Sights

Extraordinary

We have travelled a fair bit and have never seen a sunset like a Burmese sunset.

The clouds seem to catch fire.

There's work here for someone

Imagine London's Oxford Street 20 years after a neutron bomb attack and that's pretty much what downtown Yangon looks like, except there are also lots of very-alive people, dogs, cats, pigeons and occasional rats.

Yangon has the most complete set of colonial buildings in southeast Asia, and the streetscapes are a delight if fading grandeur is your thing.

The country's flagship tourist site is Bagan - a dusty plain punctuated by over 4000 stupas and temples.

The view to the horizon from one of the higher temples is unforgettable if you can see past everyone else's mobile phones.

The beaches in the south are a simple extension of Thailand's beaches. Only they have never seen a reclining chair or Singha beer. We found the most beautiful, clean and empty beach of our lives and stayed there three days. In two years I reckon it will still be the same way, unless they have upgraded the road. Contact us for details!

The food

The Myanmar people are masters of combining flavours and textures in a single dish: soft but crunchy; spicy, salty with a hint of sour - so perfectly encapsulated in the tastebud-awakening breakfast staple, Mohinga (spicy fish broth with soft noodles and crispy chickpea fritters; it may sound disgusting but tastes sublime).

Tea Leaf Salad - it'll give you wings

And then there is the iconic fermented Tea Leaf Salad with its assault-on-the-senses overdrive so perfectly summarised by Emma, one hotel host's eight-year old daughter as having "Too much taste!".

This is the only salad we've ever eaten that needs a plain rice accompaniment. I could go on but Dave rations the words in this bl

Curiosities

Where to start? Just five minutes' walk down a Yangon street is guaranteed to throw up a bizarre object/behaviour you cannot fathom. Among the top head-scratchers are:

The capital's motorways. I think the man on the bike needn't worry.

The new (2006) Myanmar capital, Nay Pyi Taw. Have you ever wondered what a city designed by someone with no qualifications in town planning might look like? Here it is. Nay Pyi Taw allegedly covers 2700 square miles, has empty eight-lane highways, perfectly manicured verges, world-class hotels, conference centres and ministry buildings and no people to speak of. The place is devoid of character, charm and personality and it is fitting that it is the beating heart of the Military-majority government. Only one embassy (Bangladesh) has succumbed to the pressure to relocate from Yangon.

Popular now in Burma

Buddhas. There can never be enough, and the bigger the better. We witnessed not only the world`s biggest reclining one but also the outline of its half-built replacement on the opposite hill. It brought to mind Star Wars' Death Star in scaffolding phase. Weird enough, one might conclude, but the presence of a monstrous Frank Sidebottom looming out of the nearby canopy (left) sealed the deal.(Video and photos on Flickr)

George Orwell was a policeman here in the 1920s. No doubt his witnessing of colonial racism and brutality fed straight into 1984 and Animal Farm. A curious thing is that he wrote his angry, semi-autobiographical Burmese Days while an impoverished bottle-washer in Paris. And then went to live in sleepy old Southwold. Great writer. Odd bloke.

We actually don't want to see this again

An important rule of Burmese kickboxing is you can kick your opponent anywhere. Anywhere. No surprise then that several boxers we saw collapsed in a heap after a knee-ing in their soft parts. The monks in the audience seemed to take particular delight.


Burmese festival music. Sorry but this sounds like someone has taken a screeching parrot, a set of drums and several xylophones and pushed them off a steep slope, with bumps on the way down. There's no rhythm, melody or accuracy that we could tell. It is cacophony. But judging by the delight in the onlooker's faces, the loss must be ours.

Click for copious illustration of the above

Taken for granted: loos (graphic warning)

The biggest surprises when travelling aren't people, sights, tastes etc. They are when your day-to-day reference points crumble.

This is the first of a series on this theme, and we will start with loos. In this instance I speak only for the Ladies (except - you have been warned - the last photo!).

1. No loo paper

Seatless + stinky bin

Not the greatest shock, this can happen in the UK, but still a shock. Men, this is why women have handbags. You think they are full of junk but in actual fact we keep a month's supply of loo rolls in there.

2. You aren't allowed to put the loo paper down the pan
Again, not exceptional. But when in a reflex reaction you have broken the rule, and not fed the stinky bin, what do you do next?(!)

3. No toilet seat
In a French campsite toilet block there were signs on the doors indicating the ones without seats. Being the sophisticate that I am I naturally veered to a seat-equipped cubicle to discover that they meant the toilet has a rim, not a seat. Who, intentionally, sits on the rim? On the plus side the skiing pose must be doing good things for my thighs.

No paper + wet floor

4. No lock on the door
Why have a lock for goodness sake? Doesn't everybody do the same thing in there, what's all the embarrassment about?

 Regardless, I class the toilet cubicle as private space and prefer to keep it that way. This isn't too big a deal if the cubicle is small and you have a seat to sit on: you can lodge your foot against the door. More stressful is when there is only one unisex toilet and the door is sprinting distance from the pan.

5. Mystery wet floor
What is that? Has water leaked from the cistern? From the toilet bowl? Is that water? ..... Time for a different cubicle, if there is one.

6. All the above
This configuration happens when you are truly desperate and all other toilet options have failed. You have no choice other than to adopt an advanced yoga pose to keep your foot on the door, get the tissues out of your bag and minimise contact with the toilet rim, and the floor, and the stinky bin.

7. Beyond contemplation
The below was in a church in the Men's.

Everything

> CLICK FOR OUR PHOTOS - updated much more frequently than this blog

The power of Montenegro

We're not tired of the gorgeous views yet

Having seen Casino Royale we were understandably very excited to be entering this country with its cosmopolitan mountain, lake and casino wonderland. The fact that those Balkan scenes were filmed entirely in Italy is by the by.

This wee country  is certainly mountainous and the speed restrictions appear somewhat drastic.... until you get an appreciation of the condition of the roads. No wonder Bond's Aston Martin rolled 11 times.

Unplanned offroading. Click for video and Jo's whimpers

 
Montenegro's currency is the euro although it has yet to join the EU, but it is at the top of the list now and things are looking good if it's a one-in, one-out policy.

If you like smoking, it's the place for you: inside, outside, cafes, restaurants, waiting rooms, shops, no-smoking carriages in trains. Whenever you want to light up, go right ahead.

The food is tasty, extremely affordable, and dominated by meat or pizza. Oh and they really like salt. One night we started to dehydrate.

Strong again

Lovely Montenegrins, hic

It also promised to be the location where we could get some welding done on our car, Nellie, to tide her chassis over for another year or two.

Vlatko, our genial Airbnb host knew of a few mechanics who could do the job and so Dave with a spring in his step and a hopeful disposition headed off with him to engage in a spot of car fixing.

Two hours later he returned rosy-cheeked and jolly from the three glasses of home-made Rajika that was "thrust into his hand" while Vlatko and he waited for the elusive mechanic to return.

Long story short, no work was done to Nellie... But Dave did return with a little bag of pears he was given, so not entirely a fruitless expedition.

Nellie's chassis Before and After. It will do.

However three days later, all the worst holes in Nellie were welded up with long slabs of steel. She is now a quarter Montenegrin. All-in for £130. Dave reckons the same work would have set us back around £1600 at home, and without three free shots of Rajika.

This saving has not as yet translated into a week at a five-star hotel but I'm working on it.

Apologies for the slow progress with the blog. We've had several adventure since and are currently in the former North Korea of Europe, Albania, which we are finding gorgeous, utterly safe and delightful. Updates to come.

> CLICK FOR OUR PHOTOS - updated much more frequently than this blog

Bimbling to the Balkans

On the 26th September we waved goodbye to a sunny Asturias and headed for the gastronomic delights of San Sebastian (at Jo's insistence; Dave had the mountains of Andorra in mind).

One happy camper

This presented the first big test of the trip: getting the tent up without argument. The last time we tried was in the back garden of our friends Paul and Marilyn and tuts and scowls were involved. 

However, we passed with flying colours. It only took us 20 minutes with one peg broken. Cause for celebration as you will no doubt agree.

 San Sebastian lived up to its exclusive reputation and has a lovely curved beach waterfront, fabulous tapas bars, atmospheric old town and great shopping. What is not to like? We have been to all of the cities along the northern Spanish coast and we love them all. But we agree: San Sebastian is the best. 

Leaving San Sebastian we made a quick scurry into the mountains of Andorra and after one hour of walking without shade concluded that hiking in the midday sun without a hat was not the best idea.

The Andorran Pyrenees

The Spanish Pyrenees

The British Pairoknees

So we called a halt to that and headed for France and its Mediterranean coastline. Canet de Roussillon was the first place flat enough to make us glad we took the "clown bikes" (our Dahon folding bikes). Following a lovely day's pedalling, in an endorphin-fuelled burst of enthusiasm Jo - self-appointed ambassador for clown bikes - opined that "Cycling turns a good day into a great day"©. That and warmth and sunshine.

New friends Mark and Rosalind

 Two days later we visited Lodève where back in 1983 Dave's parents bought a secluded plot of land with a crumbling farmer's shack which they eventually turned into a modest family estate. They sold it six years ago.

The new owners, Mark and Rosalind, kindly offered to not only to let us come up and see the old place but to stop over with them too. It was a delightful visit: good food, good wine, good company and a comfortable bed with crisp clean sheets and quilt. What luxury. Breakfasted and numerous photos and film clips later we bade a fond farewell to Mark and Rosalind.

Old Lodeve chums Carole & Simon

 We got as far as three kilometres down the road to our next social engagement, a delicious lunch with family friends Carole and Simon in their beautiful garden in Les Plans!

 And then it was off to Mandelieu-La-Napoule near Cannes for a night with our old friends Glen and Emma. This was definitely not a spot for clown bikes: even Nellie had trouble navigating the gradients and had to succumb to low range gears for a few steep hairpins. But that night: luxury beyond anything we will experience for the next few months we suspect, so it was certainly a ‘live in the moment’ opportunity.

Old London chums Glen and Emma

 We bade our farewells to our generous friends with freshly laundered clothes and “zoomed” off to Italy to battle with the trucks and speed demons on the energising two-lane-without-hard-shoulder motorways. We have a new-found appreciation for the UK’s gentle and generous motorway joining lanes.

 The weather report was threatening unpromisingly cool weather in Italy so we decided to chase the sun and warmth on the Dalmatian coast - so it was a dash to Ancona to catch the ferry to Split in Croatia.

The odd effects of fresh air in Lucca

Our cross-country trip was briefly paused to take in a spot of cycling around the walls of Lucca. This was entirely an original idea and not in any way influenced by a WhatsApp video that we may have seen a month or so before.

 The 10-hour overnight ferry to Ancona. Least said, soonest mended.

And so to Split to coincide perfectly with the arrival of a cold front. Thank goodness for Airbnb. We easily found a lovely little beachfront apartment with central heating and blankets and a washing machine and other amazing things like an oven and TV with an HDMI socket.

 More on Split and Croatia another time but we didn’t stay long because the weather badly let us down - but we vow to return when we do our tour of the northern Balkan states. And so we have headed off south in search of sunshine, warmth and the chance to keep wearing shorts.

Nellie admires the city of Split in a snatched moment of sunshine

> CLICK FOR OUR PHOTOS - updated much more frequently than this blog

Veering from rough to vomity

Jo revving up Nellie for the ramp

Leaving Portsmouth on the hottest September day on record was a promising start to our 2016 south/eastbound odyssey. 

Unfortunately a cursory check on the Met Office shipping forecast predicted Force 9 veering to Storm Force 10 seas in the Bay of Biscay. Uh oh.

Our ship is the Britanny Ferries' Pont Aven with 9 decks, 3 bars, 2 cinemas, restaurant, self-service cafeteria, beauty parlour and a swimming pool (hah!). It takes 24 hours to reach Santander. 

Naturally my thoughts turned to food and what on earth we would eat that could be relied upon not to make a return appearance. I've been caught on out this front before.

The food on the Pont Aven is French with a British twist (chips always available and a fry-up in the morning). Here's what is great: the bread, the Brittany butter, the range of salads, the wine. Here's what is not: the tea.

Force 8+ from the starboard side

We sensibly opted for the easily digestible, and had salads with smoked salmon and cream cheese (plus a drop or two of wine to lubricate). Happy to report it was a once-only affair.

Having said that, Dave was up and about at 4am pacing the ship wondering why all went quiet on the engine front and the seas had suddenly calmed. Did the engines fail? Were we floating helplessly towards the Brittany rocks?

The poor howling pooches at 4am

Having established that neither was the case Dave made a mercy mission to the dog pound where the poor souls are incarcerated for 24 hours in little cages. He reported back that most of them were comforted by his calming presence, a couple of notable exceptions for which he was relieved that there were bars in the way.

As we near our destination the seas are easing, the sky is clearing and Dave no longer has to sip Coke and eat dry bread. Happy days.

Arriving in Santander. Phew.

Because I am in charge of the first night's stay in Santander I have unilaterally decided that we will be staying at the Hotel Real as this may be our last accommodation splurge for some time.






> CLICK FOR OUR PHOTOS - updated much more frequently than this blog