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

Why we went east again

Mondays off, comrades of Sofia!

Travelling doesn't exactly make you lazy but it does slow you down. Its pace has led me to realise that the 9-5 working day, especially the 9 bit, is quite inhumane. But that's for another time. I'm just making an excuse for the two-month delay in updating the blog.

As we may have mentioned before, we cut short our trip through India in March to return to the UK, via two special weeks in Jordan. A holiday from our holiday if you like, and it was a great month.

Supping at the tourist trough of London

Restored by hugs, cheese and Old Brewery, we then flew down to Athens and a happy reunion with Nellie in her tangerine packing factory. Her only deterioration was the big hole in the bonnet's insulation via indeterminate creatures which I hope died slowly of fibreglass poisoning.

So where to next? We were drawn to the fossilized republic of Transnistria in Moldova, on the Ukrainian border, the only country still sporting the hammer and sickle.

Macedonia. Not just a pretty flag

But as usual good food and wine, nice weather and lovely people got in the way: after zigzagging through gentle northern Greece we popped out in Macedonia - a beautiful, cheap, pocket-sized country with a great flag (which stopped it joining the EU - long story).

Then east to Bulgaria, which is the same, minus flag (like Greece they detest the Macedonia flag - another story) but plus a great Land Rover mechanic and the best beaches on the Black Sea.

Also the driving in Bulgaria was unusually good. I thought this might be because of EU membership but then remembered the Belgians, so it remains a mystery.

Blinking Balkan loveliness

These weeks reinforced our opinion that all the Balkan countries are magnificent, and everyone should visit, now.

The man at our Bulgarian beach campsite was a lorry driver in winter and it's his fault that we forgot all about Transnistria and continued east, via friends in Turkey, to Georgia and Armenia. We thought the borders and military situation would be too tricky but this gentleman drove there every other week. And we had an itch to go: we had noticed that the oldest church in almost every country we had visited, including Burma, was Armenian, and we wondered why.

So that's why we kept going east instead of circling up and round to head home.

But at last we are westward ho. As for Georgia and Armenia, and the Black Sea ship I'm writing this on, they deserve their own blog posts. Ditto photo albums on Flickr. All coming soon. Ish.

And 40th Happy Birthday to our biggest fan!

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

We ditch the car

Africa in 2003. We wouldn't put Nellie through that again.

In case it's not obvious from previous posts, I'm slightly obsessed with our car, Nellie*. She's 25 years old, has seen us safely through the wilds of Scotland, jousted with endless London buses, blanked tail-gaters all over Europe, and best of all carried us safely the length of Africa.

She has the heart of an ox. Despite losing her Ardennes Green gloss a long time ago, and random bits dropping off, she has not broken down once. As such, and as more discerning people understand, she has stately charm akin to a favourite, solid aunt.

So with a trembling lower lip we consigned her last week to a big hangar two hours out of Athens, surrounded by speedboats that are picked up by their German owners every August. Maybe between gritted grilles they swap stories about their absent owners.

Jo keeping it all in

I think she'll be OK. The owner promised to put her on blocks (saving the tyres), the tank is full (saving on condensation), we changed all the fluids (saving the engine and transmission) and I'm hoping the solar trickle charger will preserve the instant start when we return in X months.

This wasn't the plan. We were going to drive to Iran and then ship her to India. However an examination of rainfall, sunshine and temperatures (embarrassingly our main spurs to action) convinced us that we had to move pronto to India for a relaxed winter. Maybe we'll visit Iran on the way back.

Athena eat your heart out

And so we have morphed from Overlanders to Backpackers. Jo bought a new Chinese backpack for 30 euros in Athens that may or may not last three months of Indian public transport. We bounce along the road carrying a weight of only 25kg between us, which is a liberating difference from Nellie's 2015kg, and we quite like the change.

6 December: we are in Egypt, enjoying a cheap and warm side-trip, with our plane booked to Sri Lanka for Saturday.

Inevitable photos of Indiana Jones tombs and dodgy hot air balloons to follow. In the meantime here are some new snaps from great places in Greece like Olympia and scary Athens back streets.

* Full name Lady Nelson II. Happy to bore with full explanation over a pint one day.

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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

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