Accident (continued)
verge on either side. Here and there people at the roadside sell mushrooms or other things gathered from the woods.
On July 23rd I was on my way to Poland, expecting to arrive in England by the 28th to start work on my next book. I was about 10 km from the border and in no hurry, enjoying the journey, and the weather, and riding quite slowly. The speed limit here is 70 kilometres an hour and I was probably below even that.
All I have now is a vague memory of having to take avoiding action. The next thing I knew I was lying on a grass verge, with my helmet off, and my motorcycle lying a few feet away on its side.
A man with a concerned expression was near me. At some point police arrived, but I don't know how soon.
The first thing I remember is telephoning my friend, Lida, whom I had left an hour before in Lviv, and then passing the phone to the man at my side. After a bit he gave back the phone and she told me what he had said. He had been driving from the border and saw that there had been an accident. He had stopped and seen me lying there, and apparently he had taken off my helmet although I had no memory of it.
I had hit another man on a smaller motorcycle. This other man was not hurt much, just grazes and bruises. His bike suffered very little damage and his helmet, which must have been of poor quality, had a hole in it.
I had absolutely no idea how all this had happened. My left arm was hurt, but I didn't know then that a bone had been fractured. I was too confused to know that I had suffered from concussion. Only much later was I surprised to realize that my memory before and after the accident had been wiped clean.
There was more communication, this time with police, with Lida translating, but I didn't learn much. She told me she would come to the scene. Then an ambulance arrived with a cheerful female doctor and her assistant to take me to a hospital in a nearby town called Javoriv.
I think they wrapped something round my arm, and at the hospital they did an X-ray. They asked me for some money to pay for the petrol and then some more to pay for a sling.
Both amounts were very small, and I was happy to pay them. Nothing else was asked of me, but after a while they put me back in the ambulance and took me on a long and very bumpy ride of about 100 kilometres, first to one hospital and then to another in the big city of Lviv.
I heard later that because I was a foreigner they didn't want to take responsibility for me at a small local hospital, but I don't think the ride did me much good.
While I was being driven around the countryside, Lida made her way to the scene of the accident, and made sure that all my belongings were taken off the bike before the police took it away to their station in Javoriv.
At the third hospital they examined the X-ray and eventually put my arm in plaster, and while they were doing this Lida arrived in a taxi with all my stuff.
They were going to let me go, but then another doctor came in to check out my reflexes and eye movements. Evidently they were concerned that I might have suffered some other injury, but at no time did anyone ask me to tell them what had happened before or after the accident, so they seemed to have no idea that I had suffered concussion.
A police lieutenant, whose name is Oleg, came to the hospital to interrogate me and asked me what had happened.
"It is strange that you don't remember the other motorcyclist," he remarked, through Lida. Even then I didn't quite understand that I was suffering from amnesia.
Only later, when I realized that I had no memory of anyone taking off my helmet - which is not an easy thing to do - did I understand that I had lost my memory of the minutes before and after the accident.
Before she left the scene, Lida talked to the police and the other motorcyclist (whom I will call Mr. X). He appeared to have suffered very little damage and after hearing his account the police said they thought I had caused the accident.
They suggested to Lida that maybe he would like to have some money from me instead of making it a legal matter, and he agreed with her to just deal with it as two people, himself and me. She also remembers him saying, very clearly, that he had not seen me before I hit him.
Meanwhile, in my confused state I was trying to explain to myself how this accident could have happened.
Lieutenant Oleg said that I had crossed from one side of the street to the other far side before hitting Mr. X. It is inconceivable that I would do this without a reason. It seemed to me that I must have been trying to avoid some sudden hazard.
According to the police, who tried to reconstruct it, the accident happened at a place where one minor road came in from the right and then, almost immediately, another small road led off to the left. Mr. X was turning left into this second road when he was hit.
I thought maybe a car had come suddenly out from the right and forced me over to the left just as Mr. X was turning, but the police (who treated me very pleasantly throughout) said there was no evidence of another car. Of course there were no other witnesses.
Only much later did I hear that the police were accusing me of rashly overtaking Mr. X at the crossroads, which was a traffic offence. Well, knowing how I was riding at the time I knew this was impossible, and it was only then that I realized what must have happened.
Motorcyclists are rare in Ukraine, and usually ride near the edge of the road. Having been properly trained, I usually ride closer to the crown of the road for maximum visibility and I am sure that Mr. X, unaware of me, turned left across my path, forcing me over to the left where I eventually hit him.
By the time I had sorted this out it was much too late to do anything about it. The police had made their up their minds. So if any of you are contemplating having an accident in Ukraine, be sure to get your story straight at the outset.
I got good advice from two lawyers who happen to be in Lida's family and they told me to pay the fine and get out.
If I tried to defend my case, they said, I could be there for many months as the paperwork went back and forth. So, four weeks after the accident I sat before the examining magistrate, admitted my guilt, and paid the 340 Hrievnas which, fortunately for me, only amounted to $40.
She was a pretty magistrate in a very pretty, frilly silk dress, but her blue eyes were cool and smart, and I think she suspected that things weren't quite what they seemed.
I am disappointed with myself. I should have anticipated that the other guy would do something stupid. After all, that's how I've survived so far. It's my mantra: Whatever happens on the bike, it's my fault. Mr. X wanted some money from me, and at the beginning I would have given him some because he's not well off, but he hung on and later he embroidered his evidence, and when I was sure it was his fault and not mine I felt less generous.
The arm is pretty much OK after six weeks. The effects of the concussion lingered longer than I expected. Even now I'm not sure I'm through with it. The bike suffered superficial damage, mostly to Al Jesse's boxes and supports, and it's in a local workshop. I hope to be on my way in a week or so, but my plans are all to hell, and the book project will have to wait although I hope to have a couple of weeks in the UK before I fly home.
And yet the interruption has provided a priceless bonus.
Living with Lida in this tiny village on the edge of a small town I have felt myself slowly becoming part of it.
I don't speak Ukrainian, but I can say "Dobre den", and "Proshen" and a few other words. There are about seven near neighbours and it seems that the men are all called Igor and the women are all called Iryna, but I can tell them apart, and they are all nice to me. Even the woman in the corner store no longer scowls.
I've got used to taking my shoes off in the house, and taking an unusual amount of care with my appearance outside because these are a surprisingly formal people. And of course I have become even closer to Lida on her home ground. So, the journey continues . . .
October 2009
S ix weeks after the accident I described above I made my way to Germany on the bike and then, by air, to England. A doctor friend had suggested earlier that it would be a good idea to get a CT scan, just in case, so in London I wandered into the ER of a big London hospital, and it turned out that I had a bigger problem than I had realised. The hospital was part of the British National Health Service. I am not writing a medical journal but, because of the debate raging in the USA about Health Reform, what SHOULD be of general interest is the treatment I received. Horror stories from health services around the world are bandied about regularly and the NHS probably gets more than its fair share, so this account is as honest as I can make it.
I waited in the reception area for about twenty minutes. Then a nurse asked me some preliminary questions and I was shown to a cubicle.
I waited a little longer and then explained the history of the accident to one or two young men who came and went. Within two hours of my arrival my brain was scanned, twice, the second time after an injection. Almost immediately - and to my great surprise - I was admitted and put to bed in a clean, airy ward with five other men and my blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen, reflexes and eye movements were monitored every four hours.
The next day I was shown the scan, with its ugly dark slug of blood down the inside of my skull and told I had a subdural haematoma. Evidently I had had most of this for weeks, but there was a little fresh blood probably due to my flying from Germany to England.
The blood was squeezing my brain into a space where it shouldn't be and, incidentally, was probably the cause of waves of embarrassing incontinence that were plaguing me. They said they were trying to get me across to another hospital nearby that specialized in neurosurgery but there was a shortage of beds.
Had there been any sign of deterioration I would have been shifted immediately but my condition appeared stable and they were hoping not to have to drill through my skull. The consultant on the ward was very sympathetic. The nurses and the rest of the staff were friendly and efficient, as far as I could tell, and always ready to listen. The food was good (there were choices) and there was optional TV, radio and internet by each bed. In fact mine didn't work, but had I cared I am sure I could have got it fixed.
I had been there for five days when the neurosurgeon came over for a visit. He talked very easily and openly, with no sense of self-importance, and gave me plenty of time to gather my thoughts. He said there was no point in my staying in bed and sent me home to become an outpatient.
He said there was every likelihood that the problem would take care of itself and they would do another scan to confirm this.
Now, five weeks later, they scanned me again, and everything is working out well. Everything is back to normal, I can fly again, and friends say that I seem to be making a lot more sense these days.
I hadn't been in any western hospital for sixty years and was deeply impressed. Perhaps those who make frequent visits would find things to complain about, but not me. So there it is: One survivor's tale of the dreaded national health service.
July 2009
I left England a very happy man at the end of June.
I had the opportunity to show my films four times, in Dorchester, Wales, Stroud and at Horizons Unlimited in Ripley, and they seem to have passed the test.
The audiences were packed, and tried very hard to make me believe they were enjoying themselves, so I shall pursue this format and make more films of later sections of the two journeys. The format seems to work well, and eventually I suppose it will adapt easily to DVD.
Just a matter of time.
Time? I wish I could get more of that stuff. I wonder who makes it.
Catherine Germillac travelled very widely on her Yamaha in the nineties. She is a lovely, vivacious and talented girl, with a terrific zest for life, and I was very sad to hear a year ago that she was suffering from a quite crippling condition in her hands and one foot.
Hardly able to walk, or write, let alone ride a bike, I thought she must be going through hell, but I was unable to do more than send messages of condolence until now.
Well, I found her at last in Brittany in a town called Concarneau, which is just one of those really beautiful old fishing ports that line the coast.
To my delight (and chagrin) I discovered that she had all but recovered from her troubles without my help. We had two lovely days, walking the coastline and visiting friends and, thanks to a friendly fisherman, it finished with an astounding all-day meal, feeding on just about every creature that can be found in the sea.
There were crabs, and whelks, and winkles and shrimps and langoustines and herring and anchovies and, most prized of all, what are called "sea spiders" but are actually a small version of the King Crab or the Chilean Centolla.
To add to our enormous good fortune we discovered that a local supermarket, called Super U, had a shelf of wine from Argentina called La Bienvenida, which was as good as the finest Bordeaux and only cost 5.5 Euros.
From Brittany I rode across France to spend a day with Bruno (whom you might remember from Jupiter's Travels and Riding High). Then I went to the dentist in Stuttgart (Ha. Beat that!) and visited more friends near Munich and then spent a couple of days with Manfred Waffender near Frankfurt, and then to Dirk Erker in Duisburg, and . . . well, with so many friends to visit, no wonder I run out of time.
I'm in Ukraine now, recovering from all that running around.
The ride through Poland was a bit hairy, because I was waiting for my chain to break at any moment. It was making an awful racket, and to add to my discomfort my mobile phone died on me, thanks to the obscure and perverse antics of the German version of O2.
Then I discovered a couple of chain links that seemed to have frozen up, and I gave them a massage which seems to have brought them back to life. Let's hope they get me back to Duisburg.
In August and September I shall switch horses. There's a peculiarly innovative scooter waiting for me, and I plan to scoot softly around the UK, under the radar screen, like the elderly gent that I am, gathering stuff for another book. Don't ask ...!
May 2009
I brought her out of her dusty retreat after two years, brightened her up with a new battery, and sailed off down the autobahn to Stuttgart to celebrate my 78th birthday.
The next day we went further south to Bavaria where I spent the night as the guest of that rare phenomenon, a modest, generous and pleasant multi-millionaire. Roland deserves a big blog all of his own, but he's a remarkable engineer who built up a tremendous business on his own and then fell in love with the Wild West, which is where I met him of course.
I shall have to come back to him another time.
The next stop was going to be Montpellier, in the south-west of France, where I have old friends, but from Munich it's a long ride, through Switzerland, so I stopped the first night in Voiron, in the French mountains of Isere.
I'm glad I did, because it's close to the Carthusian monastery of Grande Chartreuse who make what is probably the most delicious liqueur ever sipped in this vale of tears.
If you've never tasted green chartreuse, rush out now and repair the omission. You will thank me.
With the bike running as comfortably as a diesel taxi I arrived, a happy man, in Montpellier where old friends gave me a rapturous welcome.
When you've just had a birthday you really need your friends.
I hung around for a few days, until Angel and Teresa from Spain turned up on their 1200 RT and we set off for Madrid.
All of Spain, it seems, is discovering the joys of motorcycling, and so many of them want to read my book that it justified a whole new edition. Angel and Teresa have done a new translation of Jupiter's Travels, and they did a truly beautiful job.
The book is full of pictures and illustrations and has the size and heft of a bible. We had a date, four days later, to present it at a big bookshop in Madrid, so we had three days to get there.
Those were three fine rides.
First to Girona, where I had been only once so long ago that I had forgotten everything. It's a beautiful old city, and there was a festival of flowers on. We had to run around a lot to find a hotel, but there were compensations: Huge flower arrangements floating down the river, and a very funny floral "crime scene", complete with tape and a victim's body rendered in horticulture.
We went to a profoundly authentic bodega where I bought a lot of wonderful red wine called Pais Negre for one euro a pint, highly recommended. Next stop was Zaragossa, 250 miles or so, where I saw many interesting things but can only remember being enthralled by the world's most fidgety man. And from there over some pretty high passes to Madrid. But first I must tell you about a funny thing that happened outside Girona.
You can read about it here
or you can go on to other stuff.
April
And then I thought, Why is this surprising? And I recalled that a reviewer of my last book wrote, in the Conde-Naste Traveler, "Why does it surprise me, and it does, that a biker could be a great prose stylist?"
Well, shame on me for quoting such a self-serving example (and had he never read Pillars of Wisdom?) But seriously, why is it so surprising to find bikers can also inhabit worlds that command respect and admiration?
If I had heard that King Abdullah was seeking relief on a yacht, or decompressing by flying his plane into the stratosphere I wouldn't have flicked an eyelid. Those are the things kings do. Albert, Prince of Monaco, throws javelins, does judo and fencing, and a host of other sports. All perfectly respectable. In his youth, it seems, the King of Siam was fond of firing off pistols and Sten guns in his palace gardens. Ho-hum.
The King of Sweden loves fast cars, the Emir of Quatar is an Olympic medalist and a fearless diver, King Harald of Norway has won medals sailing for his country.
The King of Swaziland's athleticism is restricted mainly to his bedroom because he is obliged to satisfy a great many wives - 23 at last count, but he is still young. His father had 70.
All these activities are more or less what you'd expect. Golf, polo, ballooning, rock climbing, skiing, dueling, multiplying, all are predictable diversions for the royalty and their imitators. But biking...?
Actually I discovered that King Juan Carlos of Spain is rumoured to ride incognito, but that only strengthens my case. For many people there is something vaguely questionable about bikes and bikers, ranging from mild distaste to outright paranoia.
I have been personally familiar with this enigma for decades. I have a book called Jupiter's Travels which has been selling in America for 28 years, and selling very well. It makes more than enough money to keep me in wine.
If it had sold better I would have made a lot more money and I would now be very unhappy at having lost a large part of it on the stock market, so I have nothing to complain about.
But it does interest me to know who buys my book. As you know, it's about riding a bike around the world, but if you've read it you will also know that its not terribly much about bikes.
It's an adventure story, and I am morally certain that if the picture on the cover had shown a man climbing a mountain or following a dog sled, all kinds of people would have read it.
The fact that it's selling as well as ever must say something about the book, but the cover shows a bloke on a bike, and as a result it is only read by people who like bikes. This is mainly an American phenomenon, it seems, and I'm curious to know if anyone has any ideas about this.
Somebody is going to write in and tell me to stop whining.
Somebody always does. I'm not. I'm quite content, and I won't be intimidated. There's something weird about this bike thing and I'd like to know what it is.
Surely it can't still be the Hell's Angels? They must all be on their mobility scooters by now. What a priceless image that is!
You may have noticed that my web site went backwards recently, from March to November. This was because I have discovered the secret of reverse aging . . .
Well no, actually, it's because I cocked up at a crucial moment when my ISP was migrating. As we all know, migration is a serious problem in the world today and it hit me right on the cusp. So I need to recap on a few things. . . . .
Just recently I rediscovered some cassette tapes that I made 35 years ago during the first magical months of my journey, from London to Nairobi. Hearing them again is like reliving the past. There are camel drivers singing on the ferry from Aswan to Wadi Halfa, more music from Kinedra in the Atbara Desert, and from tribesmen at the Crocodile's Mouth, and commentary from the road to Gedaref.
I have digitised them and incorporated them into a short film of that part of the journey.
I showed it for the first time, together with much more from both journeys, at the Santa Rosa BMW dealership north of San Francisco in March.
It was a great success - standing room only - so I am encouraged to improve on it.
My desert companions outside Kassala in Sudan
Because I recently became the grandfather of a darling little fellow called Landon, I flew to Kentucky later in March to visit the family. So of course, while I was there, I showed my films again, to more enthusiasts at Eastern Kentucky University, and that went down very well too.
The plan to go to Springfield didn't work out this time, nor did the gig in Miami, but we can pick those up again another time when I'm back from Europe.
I leave in four days' time, on April 28th, to fetch my bike from Dirk Erker in Duisburg. He looks after it, and I sort of look after his bike at my place, but he's a brilliant mechanic, and I'm not.
So first I'm going to ride down a long chain of friends to Montpellier, in France, near where I once lived. And there I'll meet up with Angel and Teresa who have just published a new translation of Jupiter's Travels in Spanish.
I have never met them, but I KNOW for a fact that they are wonderful people, just from they way they write to me, and the work they've done.
So then we three will ride in company to Madrid, and on May 11th at the De Viajes book shop I will introduce myself and the new book and show some pictures.
Then I will eat tapas and drink a lot of rioja. That's how it goes.
I'm planning to be in Europe for five months. Far too much to talk about right now. I'll try to keep blogging away though. Meanwhile I have to say good bye to the beautiful, big garden I've been working on behind my house. My trusty neighbours, Nona, Tammy and Ted are going to take care of it and. I hope, extract a ton of good stuff from it. It's part of a communal arrangement I have always wanted since I had to let go of my organic farm in 1989. Here's a picture:
In the new year comes yet another delightful prospect at the other end of the world.
There are two lovely Kiwis, John and Alison Rains, who run the excellent if unpronounceable Te Waipounamu motorcycle touring company in New Zealand, and they have asked me to star in one of their forthcoming productions.
Or, to bring it down to earth, they are promoting a tour around their gorgeous country in January of 2010, and they think having me along will entice some of you to go too.
I hope they're right.
I've never done anything like this before, and probably never will again, but I reckon it'll be a riot.
I know them well - they're very good people, and very good at what they do - and I can't wait to get another gawk at the spectacular scenery.
So, if you're enticeable, click here, and find out all about it.
October 2008
With Helge Pedersen at the BMW rally in Gillette, Wyoming
This last summer (Ah, those lazy months of innocence) I was all over the American heartland - Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, Ohio, Kentucky, Colorado, New Mexico and everywhere in between.
With my invaluable Toyota pick-up (the best vehicle ever built) I carted my books around and showed pictures to anyone who would look at them.
I also had a companion to decorate my life, a lovely lady from Ukraine who helped to mind the booth while I was showing off somewhere else.
Many people assumed she was my wife and told me how happy they were for me. In truth there was a time when I hoped she would be, but even though our government is convinced that any Ukrainian would kill for a chance to live in America, here is one Ukrainian who cannot be torn from her country and, alas, I cannot function over there, so now Lida is back where she belongs, and I have bought a tractor to console myself.
Now that we are plunged into economic chaos and a world-wide food crisis, it would be nice if an unintended consequence led to a slimming of America, but I suspect that our bellies will be our citadels, to be defended to the last.
Of course this whole collapse was bound to happen. I am only one of many who saw it coming.
About 4 years ago I sold some land and had a bit of money left over. Wealthy neighbours advised me to talk with a mortgage broker in Santa Rosa, a boom town north of San Francisco. He told me that he could indeed lend my money out as a second mortgage at 12%, a wonderful return, but then he added, "The real money is in the late fees."
I recoiled at the idea of having to deal with people who were hanging on by their fingernails to a house they couldn't afford. It was all too obvious, when I thought about it, that the bubble would have to burst, but I didn't know all the ramifications (Who did? Who does?)
Some people profess to be interested in my point of view about larger matters, so I'm going to give it, even if it does cost me book sales. Here to start with is a basic observation about the 'bail-out".
The money managers - the people supposedly responsible for this mess - work for companies (banks, insurance agencies, mortgage brokers, funds, or all the above rolled into one) and according to the dictates of capitalism (which is next to God) their job is to make money for their shareholders.
Assuming they obey the law (some don't, but that's another matter) they can do what they like, and if they see opportunities for creating more and more fanciful ways for making one buck look like two bucks or ten bucks or a hundred bucks, so that they can bring in more and more profit lending out money they don't have, then who can blame them?
Well, that's the question. Who? Do they have a moral obligation to anticipate the crash? Is that an ingredient of capitalism? I don't think so
So the moral obligation has to be enshrined in law, or in other words, regulations. Now we are promised more regulation, which is good.
But listen, people! Who has all the incentive, the means, and the expertise for finding ways to beat the regulations?
Those same people we are attempting to regulate? Who's going to win? They are, given just a bit of time.
That's it, folks. You want your capitalism, then take your medicine, every ten years or so, like it says on the label.
Of course there is a way to be protected. Instead of watching the ads inciting us to buy more and more stuff, and instead of responding to the banks who want us to take on more and more credit, we could be learning how to live a fruitful and rewarding life on what we've already got.
But that takes common sense, self-control, a greater interest in things that don't cost money (like reading, learning, playing music, enjoying the planet, growing a little food) and a sturdy indifference to what the Joneses are up to next door.
Is that the elusive American Dream I have never quite been able to pin down? Probably not, but it should be.
Speaking of which, how does it come about that only Americans are allowed to dream of a better future?
Do we really believe that the rest of the world lives in sullen despair?
I would say the European Dream is looking much healthier, right now, than ours. The Latin American Dream is looking quite good as well.
Believe it or not, Africans dream too, and even the Chinese Dream might bear looking at.
But you can't run for office without mentioning the American Dream in every other sentence, along with Plumber Joe.
What suckers we are for words, and how we drag our candidates down into ignorance, forcing them to misuse words and make a travesty of language! Well, I've listened to the appalling Palin, who speaks English as a second language, and I heard this last debate, and I just hope to God nothing happens now to stop Obama from winning.
Not that I think he is the answer to all our prayers.
I had a good friend, a well-known historian who was himself a long-standing friend of a President of France, and I asked him what the man was really like.
He looked at me ruefully and said, "Well, you know, they are all monsters."
And of course I understand that.
It must take a monstrous ego to survive the process, but I think the chances are better with a young man, quite aside from the fact that Obama's policies have been consistently sane and appealing (as were Hillary's) as opposed to the policies of McCain.
Regardless of his past heroic episodes, I look at him and shudder. He really is an old monster.
But if Obama does get in, we need to hold his feet to the fire and make sure that he comes through.
Meanwhile, as the worthy senators and congressmen, (and one annoying presidential candidate) were busy figuring out how to spend $700 billion, I was entertaining a bunch of bikers at a place down by the river - the Russian river - called the Rio Nido Roadhouse.
I got an email in July from Josh, who has something to do with this place, and although I knew nothing about the set-up it sounded like a neat place to go in the Fall, especially as it was just down the road, so I said OK.
My intuition was good. It actually is a neck of the woods, redwoods, right on the river not far from Guerneville. That whole area has a really comfortable, old, settled feeling about it.
They have a good patch of grass (no gophers) to camp on, and a stage, and the whole place is run in a very easy, disarming manner.
They do it twice a year - they call it the Redwood Rendezvous - and I recommend it. I have a phone number. 415.794.3093. I wish I had pictures, but the beer was too good and I forgot to take them.
I shouldn't finish without congratulations to:
Bob Higdon for photographing every courthouse in the United States
Andy Goldfine for his Very Boring Rally celebrating 25 years of Aerostich. A great party. Thank you Andy.
The AMA for it's super tribute to Triumph at the mid-Ohio race track. Another hugely enjoyable event.
PS: At my lumberyard yesterday I saw some boxes with the born-again fish on them. They contained wallboard jointing compound - what we call "mud".
Faith-based mud! Well, why not? Good for slinging.
November 2007
Recently, with my tongue firmly stuck in my cheek, I invited well-wishers to come and help sort out a small part of the mess. There was some brush to clear, and to my amazement a platoon of people responded eagerly. I was humbled.
In my usual inept fashion I made it as difficult for them to come as possible, but even so two of them actually made it here.
June 2007 Dreaming of Jupiter is on its way at last. A picture from rural Ukraine, in the neighbourhood of L'viv
From Waldeck I came to Kassel and decided to have look. There were some
interesting buildings on the river but I had trouble parking somewhere
safe. I only took one picture, and here it is. The girl in front looks as
though she's trying to grow her own stilts.
.
Next, to Italy. I was on my way to have dinner with my buddy Franco in
Milan. I could make it in a day, of course, but that's much too far for
fun, so looking at the map I found Asiago about halfway. I've had Asiago
cheese, and I thought I'd see what it's like where they make it. The route
to Milan goes past Venice and across a plain. It's low down and hot. On my
way I had a little excitement too. A huge traffic jam held me up, so I took
some side streets and found myself suddenly right in the middle of the
route for a major Italian bicycle race. There were crowds lined up on each
side of me, and men with red flags and even redder faces screaming at me to
get the hell out of there. Which I did. Pronto. Then, on my way to Asiago, I learned about the shortcomings of road
maps. For one thing they don't show contours. From that sweltering,
low-lying plain I suddenly found myself climbing at an ever steeper angle
until, for the last twenty miles or so I was doing an incredible series of
the sharpest hairpins, (torni), I've
ever ridden. That's when I really got into trouble with those low gears. Asiago turned out to be in another world, high up in the Alps, but it
was worth it.
There was a lot more to this trip, and maybe I can come back to it later when I have more time. Meanwhile, if you want to look deeper into Petya Grom's motorcycle museum you can click here .
They are right of course. I should be blogging away like there's no yesterday, and thanking my lucky stars that anyone wants to read me. And since the web site is all about me - wonderful, death-defying, multi-tasking, life-enhancing, globe-transcending ME - maybe you will be interested to hear why such a paragon (or conceited asshole; take your pick) can't even get it together to write about himself.
Well, the problem is life. My life gets in the way. It has grown into this huge, unmanageable conglomeration of things to do. They're all things I want to do, and they keep me healthy and give me a lot of satisfaction, but I can't keep them in bounds.
There's always more.
I like building stuff, and growing stuff, and playing the piano, and meeting people, and traveling, and cooking, and eating and drinking in good company, and being alone to think and remember stuff. And then there's the writing, and the publishing too, of course. I'm full of ideas about more things to do.
In theory it's a great system. The building keeps me fit. Growing food keeps me healthy. There's plenty to exercise my brain and fight off senility.
It would be a perfect arrangement if I could only find a way to keep it in order, but my house is a plethora of unfinished projects, my grounds have too many patches of wasteland. I keep missing credit card deadlines, neglect has brought my piano playing into disgrace, there are too many irresistible opportunities to travel, and too many things to write that I haven't written - including my web site.
I'll try to do better, but I can't promise. I think my life will always be a mess. Heaven help my executors.
I hope they won't be called upon too soon.
Nobody has yet asked me the secret of my longevity, because 76 isn't all that old any more but I do meditate often on my good fortune. How come I still run up the stairs, when my step-father (bless him) told me that men stop doing that by the time their fifty? Let alone ride round the world?
I've concluded that it can't be just my genes that keep me so sprightly. It must be something I'm doing. So maybe, in it's own unintended way, this messy life of mine is doing me good.
And for the past 44 years, since I last had a job, I've only been doing things I wanted to do, as opposed to doing what others want me to do. Not too many people can say that? It makes me unemployable, of course, but I'm proud of it.
This is what the jungle looked like
before Dave and Dan, two brushwhackers of extraordinary skill and daring
penetrated the forest. We laboured mightily for most of the day
and here is how it looks now - a veritable sylvan glade.
I rewarded them with food and a slide show, and Dave, who came here from Canada, left behind several bottles of precious fluids which he said he wouldn't be able to get back across the border.
We dug up many curious artifacts with which to enrich the local dump, and the accumulated brush made a great bonfire for Guy Fawkes day which I celebrate regularly every fifth of November.
Whose effigy we actually burn is a hot topic.
I leave it to people's imagination - after all, not everybody feels the way I do about Bush, Cheney and Co. Almost everybody though.
Aside from that, I should tell you more about my six weeks in Europe. I had a great time, as usual, at the Gieboldehausen meeting in Germany. I had the great pleasure of meeting Doris Wiedemann, a motorcycle journalist and adventurer with a wonderful toothy smile who took me on a superb back roads tour on the way south to Stuttgart.
The first day was a delight.
On the second day I got more wet than I have ever been, even in an Indian monsoon. The rain was unbelievable and relentless. Visibility on the autobahn was terrible, there was fog at times too, and despite my Aerostich suit I was soaked from my waist to my toes. Doris was in even worse shape, because her lights packed up and she had to ride on, in the dark, in the same torrential downpour, to Augsburg.
She didn't tell me about her lights or I don't think I would have let her go on. I don't know how she survived, but she's a great rider, and made it home safely.
The next day I rode under the Alps to Italy, and got myself into an Italian motorcycle magazine called MotoTourismo.
Maria Barry, the badge-lady who turns up at lots of rallies and rides vintage Triumphs, has been urging me for years to taste the delights of Tuscany, so I spent a week at her mother's guest house in Barga, and threw a literary reading and book sale in for good measure. It's an interesting and pretty mountain-top village, strangely full of Scots.
How that happened I don't know, although they are rather clannish, aren't they.
Maria introduced me to the book shop owners and I tried to look suitably bookish.
The food and wine were outstanding, and so was my waistline. I tried to keep control by clambering up and down the steep village streets as much as possible, but it was a losing battle.
Hate to say it, but it was probably a good thing I left when I did.
I rode the bike up to Slovenia, and then to Hungary, and then to Ukraine. Iv'e been think how marvelous it is to have this bike in Europe. The old BMW Funduro may not be a very glamorous bike. I remember when I first rode one ages ago in the nineties I didn't like it much, but I'm converted. For what I want to do, which is to travel long distances easily and safely it's a terrific bike, and I'm surprised again to realise just how safe I feel on it. It's a '97 model - I got it very cheap - I've had to put tyres, a chain, and new head bearings on it and in two years I've done 12,000 miles. I got some boxes from Al Jesse and they've performed very well. I know I announced my conversion to soft luggage, but that was for the rough stuff in Africa and so on. For civilised cruising around Europe boxes are probably better.
There was a very good review in the Observer, and another in the Sunday Times, as well as a number of stories and paragraphs in various magazines and newspapers. The BBC program "Excess Baggage" was good fun, and a lot of people seem to have caught it, even outside the UK. By all accounts the book is doing well, in England, Germany and the Netherlands which makes the long and painful gestation seem worth while. There is no news about France, Italy and Spain. I know there are many potential readers there. I get emails all the time asking for different language versions of Jupiter's Travels.
It's unclear how it will be published in the States, but I now have a good stock of copies of the British hard back at my home in California to send to all the people who have ordered it from me already and will, I hope, do so in the future.
Most of this year I have been in Europe, promoting the book in the UK, in Germany and later in Holland. I was at the Tesch meeting, which was as usual a very appreciative crowd, and later at a really enjoyable meeting of Africa Twin enthusiasts at a castle somewhere north of Frankfurt.
Then I was back in England for the Horizons Unlimited meeting at Lumb Farm near Derby and got my first puncture in seven years on my way there which made me feel more like a motorcycle traveler again. In spite of the atrocious weather, the meeting was great, and full of inspiring and unexpected people. From there, at the end of June I rode on to Amsterdam, to publicise the Dutch edition.
I planned to go to the BMW MOA meeting in Wisconsin, but by the time I got back to the States, I realized I was burned out. When you leave a rural place for six months there's just too much to do. So I've put off my American tour to next year. Now I'm busy chopping up trees, building decks, packing books, and tending my garden.
Thank you all for welcoming me, and making my efforts seem worth the trouble.
May 2007
A couple of months ago I promised to say something about my time in Ukraine. My interest in the country dates back to 1993 when I walked through part of it on my way to Romania and wrote about it in The Gypsy in Me.
On my way I found myself in a small town with only one hotel. I was hot, tired and dirty but, to my amazement and disgust, the hotel refused to have me. Eventually I found two English teachers who took pity on me, and invited me in, and that began a friendship which has lasted and blossomed.
Anyway, this year I was invited by one of those teacher friends to spend three weeks at a sanatorium on the Black Sea, and share a room. These sanatoria are a holdover from the palmy days of Soviet times, built so that favoured workers could also enjoy the seaside pleasures once reserved for the rich. My sanatorium was named "friendship" and was built in 1985. It's an extraordinary building. Here's a picture of it:
I was pleasantly surprised by the room, which had a nice comfortable feel about it. An enormous radiator concealed behind a mirror kept it warm, the beds were good, there was a refrigerator that worked and a fairly modern bathroom with a tub. We arrived just after the sanatorium had opened for the season, and it took a while to get into its stride. At first there was no hot water when we needed it and the bathroom was cold, but things gradually improved.
True, the beach is pebble, but that's not so bad. There were three meals a day served in a large, airy restaurant on the top floor. The dishes were brought to the table, more or less graciously, and there was a limited amount of choice.
You can have various kinds of "kotlet", which are rolls of chopped meat, breaded and fried, but whatever they have in them they all taste rather similar. Then there's boiled chicken and fried chicken, and boiled fish and fried fish, and . . . well you get the idea. But after a day or two I actually got used to it, and found it quite acceptable.
There are big tureens of good soup (including borscht). There is fruit juice sometimes, and always tea, lots of tea. On Easter Sunday we all got a glass of wine, but otherwise I never saw alcohol at any of the tables. I believe you're perfectly entitled to bring a bottle to the table but I never dared.
As for other amenities, the bottom of the building houses a fine, and very large salt water swimming pool. There's a concert hall where ther are films and disco dancing on alternate nights, and occasional cutely innocent little shows. There's a gym with serious equipment, and table tennis.
My friend, being a qualified "worker", only had to pay twenty per cent of the cost, but I had to pay the full amount, which came to a stunning $200 (or £100) a week. This is an incredible bargain for us lucky westerners, but before you rush off there you should know that you are very unlikely to find an empty bed.
My worst fears, that I would be confronted by stony-faced officials and bureaucrats, were generally unfounded. The ladies at the reception desk were unfailingly nice, warm and sympathetic.
The last of the old-style bureaucrats seem to have been banished to the nether depths of the swimming pool. There were two of them down there, Scylla and Charibdis, and even when the pool was empty, after 40 minutes one of them would be screaming "Out", like a banshee.
The countryside around is hilly, lightly forested, and quiet, although more and more is being acquired (corruptly, one is told) by the new rich. Quite nearby is the Czarist palace of Livadia where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met 63 years ago to settle the fate of Europe.
A walkway called "path of the sun" follows the escarpment that faces the sea and connects Livadia with another palace in Alupka, where Churchill stayed. This was built for Count Worontsov, and is a strangely eclectic mixture of Scottish, mediaeval English and Oriental styles, but succeeds nonetheless in being very impressive.
Ukraine is one of those countries I always had a hard time getting a grip on. Like most people I just thought of it as a part of Russia, never as an independent nation, and I can see now how hurtful that was to a lot of Ukrainians, who have their own language and culture.
Like Poland, Ukraine has been fought over through the centuries by powerful neighbours eager to claim it's rich natural resources, but while Poland first achieved nationhood after the first world war, Ukraine had to wait until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Even now Stalin's legacy causes bitter strife. He deported large numbers of Ukrainians, and encouraged Russians to live there, so that half of present day Ukrainians want closer ties to Russia, while the other half wants to join with Europe.
This seems to be the root cause of all the political infighting, the recent crisis, the apparent betrayal of the Orange Revolution and government paralysis. It also favours wholesale corruption.
A journalist (who should fear for his life) recently added up the cost of all the wrist watches worn by the members of Ukraine's parliament who, it's believed, routinely sell their votes. He concluded that their combined value could solve at least one of the countries most pressing problems.
Murder can be politics by other means. While I was in Yalta, a Russian deputy was assassinated there. His name translates roughly as Little Chicken but apparently he was immensely rich, with huge holdings in Crimea. It wasn't the murder that made the headlines. Politicians are murdered on a regular basis it seems. It was the assassin's gun which drew attention. The bullet, they said, was fired by a "special" that was known to cost a million dollars.
with many delicacies that I hadn't come across before.
The cost of basic food items in Ukraine is approximately
a sixth of the price in Western Europe.
October 2006
Ilanded in Frankfurt, took a train to Duisburg, and set off on a non-stop ride through rain to Hamburg to celebrate my cousin's birthday. I spent a
couple of days with my family while my shoes dried out and I got my hair
cut. Couldn't stay longer because I had to meet my German publisher in
Cologne, which meant going south again, even further. It was still raining,
so I gave in and bought some boots just to make sure that it never rained
again - and it didn't, for five weeks. In Cologne they put me up in a super
hotel with a remarkable bar. Here's a picture of it
I thought I might find out something more about her. I found a castle and some lovely scenery, but this Waldeck was apparently from a different
branch of the same family. 
This style of
building is called fachwerk
The Mother of all German Rallies is Bernd Tesch's deal on the Belgian
border. It's been going for nearly thirty years and I first went in '95.
Bernd specializes in 'survival training' so he used to have it in March
when the snow was still on the ground, although he has relented a bit now
and put it back to April. It's a great rally, mostly for long distance
riders, but it's very intense and Tesch dominates the proceedings.
Some people felt the need for a more comfortable and relaxed rally at a
more pleasant time of year, so now a bunch of them, mostly German, go to a
pleasant village in north Germany, near the university town of Goettingen,
and not far from Kassel. I've been several times, and really enjoy it.
Something I noticed for the first time on this trip is that the Germans,
unlike most of the rest of us, have found a way to take a lot of their
light industry into the countryside without spoiling it so that people can
live a rural life, sustain their villages and gardens, and still have
well-paying jobs. It is not unusual to ride through a forest or farmland
and come across an isolated factory, clean, tidy, obviously controlled with
great care for the environment.
My reason for going was that my mate, Dave Wyndham, who helped me round
the world, told me about this Krauser Rally that he goes to every year, and
it just fitted in perfectly.
Actually I got the impression that there would be maybe a dozen of us, so I
was amazed to find that there were almost 200 bikers signed up, all
expecting to ride together through the countryside. Anyone who knows me,
knows I am quite leery of group riding.
and
I think they're beauties 
He's an old hand on this rally and
loves it. Ignore the trucks. They're nothing to do with us. 
he rode
all over Europe 
She runs a coffee shop
and produces the exhilarating
black liquor from a twin-cylinder machine,
below.
You might be able to make out the spark plugs and leads.
I found a very nice, comfortable and inexpensive hotel called the Alpi.
Here it is, on a pedestrian street:
and the town hall, and I found a piece of art work there that
really impressed me 