Chiang Mai

An overnight sleeper took me north to Chiang Mai. Copying my co-passengers I scaled the narrow ladders and popped into my curtained pod and snoozed away the miles. 

Diptocarping around

Ko Lanta faded beyond the horizon as the last boat trip of this coastal diversion led me towards Trang.

Islands and time floated by 

Solvitur Velocipedo

Cocooned in my forest lair by day, by night holed up in the sequestered serenity of the campsite's riverside glade. I passed my time beneath the 1600m peaks that closet the table land. Five trails led away from my tent; four into the forest hills. The fifth, least used, led back to roads and noise and people. Occasional forays that way into the tourist hub of Tanah Rata's main drag to procure food a fleeting, grating reminder of the busy reality just a tree screen away.

The stillness couldn't last. Altitude is a a cyclists hardest won currency; the urge for a spendthrift splurge rose irresistibly. With a glorious descent promise-note burning a hole in my pocket I packed up my camp and romped through Brinchang and Kampung Raja, the tableland's northern most stations. The scale of the developments was difficult to miss. The WWF's describing land clearance as "rampant" did not seem hyperbolic looking over valleys glaring back from reflective cellophane and glass.

Pahang: Judge not lest ye be judged?

I left Fraiser's Hill wreathed in a thick layer of wet mist.

Ignore the spinal tap impersonator blocking the mist-obscured view fairly pulsing with highland cool 

The upland forest continued to titillate as I weaved down the hairpins.

Doolittle Fallacy

Suffice to say I didn't die.

I accelerated downwards for perhaps five feet before my heels hit ledge. Jarred forward by the impact my flailing hand clutched handful of thorns which finally brought me to a halt.

A shaky, undignified, but thankful stop.

Legs straight and rigid, both arms locked behind me from the shoulder, torso leaning forward at 45 looking straight down. I must've looked like nothing so much as a very out of place and inept ski jumper.

Tentatively I stepped back from the brink. Now feeling 100% keen to be down I carefully descended the blessedly flattening lower portion and hit the bottom.

Thank fuck, I thought eloquently.

I was shaken. Failing to follow the path to its conclusion called into question some of the qualities with which I had begun to identity: Adventurousness, stoicism, stubbornness. The confidence in my willingness to carry on regardless was suddenly in doubt. If I can't even reach a sodding waterfall... At least I could say with certainty that I didn't have a death wish. Having set out on this trip depressed that I suppose was no minor thing.

Retracing my steps looking around for turn off's missed, my certainty that this hadn't been the way evaporated. The path underfoot was undeniably there if over grown and tough going.

The phrase 'kids and oldies may find it tough' swirled. May???? Maybe I had just wimped out.

I got back the rainforest level and trudged back eyes cast down.

A beautiful Blue Necked Keelback appeared right in front of me. Delicate coils of luminous orange. The Keelback was calm, no flattening of its neck to threaten a strike with its small venomous mouth. Instead it paused and then gracefully waved its way to a sunny leaf strewn spot to bask.

I watched enraptured as he relaxed and, just like that, I felt much better.

Battle of the Bulge

Departure #2 was from a lovely spot called Hutan Lipur Sungai Sendat, a waterfall, just north of KL. Peter, keen to test out his new hammock, joined me. Arriving in the early hours of the afternoon we found it closed...

Fortunately Peter and I are on the same wave:

The best sort of travel always involves a degree of trespass. The risk is both the challenge and the invitation. ~ Paul Theroux

So we ducked under the police tape and were rewarded with a blissful place to camp for the evening.

Bicycle Sounds

I was recently contacted by Fil Corbitt. A talented podcaster from Reno.

Showing uncharacteristic poor judgment he wanted to do an interview with me.

Here it is:
 
Naturally I apologise to Fil and you for my relentless erring and umming, an odd pronunciation of Pasargadae, and even odder plummy accent. I put the later down to a spontaneous post-colonial reaction to talking with an American.

Musandam and bust

I was pleased to be waved through the border crossing at Dibba.

I was pleased not to have to pay for a new Omani visa.

I was less pleased to now be an undocumented foreign national. 

To complicate matters further, non-GCC nationals (me) aren't allowed to pass between border crossings here. Travelling from say Dibba, north to Khassab and then on to re-enter the UAE at Ash Sham was prohibited. 

A shame indeed, as that was exactly my intention. I'd read about dolphins cavorting in the fjords around Khassab and I meant to see them.

Bureaucracy be damned.

So I scooted out of Dibba to make camp.

An obliging acacia grove provided a discrete and comfortable spot. 

Emirati hospitality

Where the north-eastern extremity of the Arabian Peninsula tapers into the mouth of the Persian Gulf geography gets exciting and political boundaries get confusing.

Enclaves within enclaves compete with exclaves to confound the unwary cyclist.

For those with a taste for such things the addition of internal Emirati borders reveals yet further complexity.

Predictably we British must take our fair share of responsibility but this patchwork is at least the result of a commendable effort to ensure borders correspond to the reality of local loyalties on the ground. A starker contrast to the brutal linear creations foisted upon much of Africa is hard to imagine.

My practical considerations were limited to making my way towards Musandam while minimizing visa costs and avoiding dead ends like those I'd encountered in Al Ain

Muscat: The wadi forks

I left the mountains that had beguiled me so and moved from Oman's desert interior to her salty coastal plain.

A different Oman, no longer dominated by the Rub' al Khail's echoing void but by the call of the waves. Fishermen and maritime trade replace goat herds, camels and date farming.

Arabia Felix

Goodbye metropolis, hello desert.

Negotiating the patchwork of four-lane M4 impressions which masquerade as quiet backroads on maps of Dubai I just about succeeded in avoiding the worst of the the regions fearsome mega motorways and found a big but quiet dual carriageway heading generally south south east. Small roads just aren't in the transport vocabulary of the UAE.

Beyond my general direction of travel I had no plan or expectations as to where I might end up. So it was with a sense of incredulity that I found myself peddling beneath this

What the what?

This felt like an especially surreal discovery given that Dubai is about as far from a bicycle oriented city as one could hope to find.

Leaving Iran

Leaving the remnants of the Shahs final excesses behind I cycled across the plain and through the mountains of the lower Zagros that separates Persepolis from the valley in which the city of Shiraz nestles.

Hearing the word Shiraz you perhaps think of a nice glass of red wine. You'd be half right in this case. The region around this most fondly loved of Iranian city is reported to have produced the finest wines in the Middle East from the 9th Century onwards. But 18th and 19th century European tourists were raving about sweet white 'port-esque' vintages; it turns out the link between the city and the popular Syrah grape variety ends with the name. For all you Onophiliacs it's all rendered moot anyway as those much vaunted vineyards have been producing raisins since the Islamic Revolution.

Mention Shiraz to an Iranian however and they are likely to think one thing: Poetry. Iran is a country where poets are revered and where poetry remains a vital cultural currency. Tehran may have the jobs, Esfahan the architecture and Mashad the holiness but Shiraz has the verse.

Two names ring out above all in the pantheon of Iranian poetry. Hafeez and Saadi (Fans of Ferdowsi and Rumi may splutter.) and both are sons of Shiraz.

Even after all this time,
the sun never says to the earth,"You owe me."
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky. ~Hafez

The sun was out as I wove my way through the late morning traffic to the old quarter where I left the main streets and picked my way along winding alleyways flanked by high whitewashed walls in search of the well hidden Niayesh boutique hotel.  Sounds expensive but fortunately it wasn't with a single room abutting the central courtyard kindly discounted to a manageable $5 a day.

That'll do

One effect of my chosen mode of travel is solitude. It's something I have come to treasure deeply but taking a break from it in Shiraz was a pleasant change.

Persepolis

Departing Yazd heading west meant leaving the desert plains and crossing a stark mountain range dominated by the 4075m high Shir Kuh. (Lion mountain)

Just over 400k to Shiraz but lots to see in the meantime

Dasht to Yazd

Iran's geography fascinates. Bestriding the ancient overland trade routes of spice and silk and sitting at the literal crossroads between Europe, Arabia, India, Central Asian and on to China. 

*The Silk Roads

Few modes of travel offer a better means to feel that geography than the humble velocipede  As I poured over maps in my tent on chilly evenings a realisation emerged and was confirmed as I pedaled; following rivers is both less possible and less profitable In Iran than nearly any other country I had traversed.

Tehran

It occurs to me that in my haste to write my previous post I didn't really discuss Iran as a country outside how it impacted on my cycling trip. A terribly narcissistic failing for which I beg forgiveness.

I find myself writing this 8000 miles away, two months removed and three countries later so I'll dispense with all pretense of punctuality and instead luxuriate in recalling this beguiling, contradictory country which often inspires so many opinions based on such little understanding.

Iran 1st leg: Tabriz

I spent a couple of days ostensibly riding out the weather in Meghri but really immobilised by the prospect of leaving for the unknown of Iran. In my haste to arrive at the border before my visa window elapsed I had done so with a week to spare and I found it surprisingly difficult to leave.

Despite falling ill I felt very affectionate towards Armenia. Apricot jam, excellent inexpensive brandy and sensational doors were now my status quo. A land of harsh mountains, proud of its Christian heritage but perfectly relaxed about all shops staying open late on Sundays; where an overturned cup of coffee can predict whether you would find love. (I would not apparently, so the system checks out.) Even the overwhelmingly high proportion of white vehicles compared to other colors now seemed perfectly normal.

Assault by mountain.

Before leaving Goris I happened upon this diagram in the hostel guestbook written by a very thoughtful cyclist who had passed through some years earlier.

I very much approved of the clear concise format filled with helpful annotations. What it lacked aesthetically it made up for in clarity. All in all a very useful document especially it's allusion to a deserted monastery at the top of the pass before Kapan.

With the afternoon already wearing on I decided that a 15k freewheel down to the gorge bottom followed by a 10k climb was more than do-able before nightfall and would allow me to sleep at said monastery that night.

Gully! What a gorge-ous couloir, canyon not defile it?

What I may lack in pun quality I try to make up for in exuberant quantity.

Having spent a comfortable pagan night camped amongst the stone sentinels my morning began with another high pass to reach. At 2260m it was only a few hundered short of Selim and constituted a hearty mornings work.

But safe in the knowledge that my destination for the day, Goris, was only 25k beyond I could relax and enjoy the growing majesty of the surrounds.

It hadn't rained here for days but the snow hung on even on the road side making me glad of warm gloves and hat despite the high sun and bitterly lamenting the loss of my buff as the cold wind came down off the peaks.

Ancient Armenia

A deliriously fun descent from Selim was the first order of the day and with Handel's Trumpet Concertio pushing away thoughts of my frozen feet I could concentrate on soaking up the beguilingly hazy views offered up by every twist and turn.

Working my way down the valley I watched as winter fell away replaced by the last of autumns leaves and the beginnings of pretty riverside orchards.

Dark clouds over Yerevan

I took a Marshutka to Yerevan which meant going to some wasteland behind a pharmacy and saying Yerevan to various loiterers before lucking upon a driver, who pointed at this glorious vehicle.




The bus doesn't leave until full and so people enter, put a bag on a seat, and then get off for a cigarette, go shopping, or talk loudly into mobiles. How this doesn't result in the bus never leaving is a mystery to me but through some magical process passengers re-coagulated at a seemingly unappointed moment and we were off.