News from Jupiter (continued) November 2007



People tell me that I'm not doing enough on my web site. Here we are in November and I'm still cracking on about what I was going to do in August.
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.

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.
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.

June 2007

I'm very happy with the way my new book has been received, because I won't deny that I was nervous. There can never be another "Jupiter's Travels" and that was a hard act to follow.



Dreaming of Jupiter is on its way at last.



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 picture from rural Ukraine, in the neighbourhood of L'viv

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:

It's built right on the coast, a hundred yards from the beach. From the window of our room we looked out over the blue Mediterranean waters of the Black Sea and could watch dolphins leaping out of the sea all day long. A few miles East is the port of Yalta.

I confess I had no idea what to expect. Would it remind me of the grim reports people brought back from holiday hotels in the Soviet bloc back in the old days; dull food, rude service, endless waiting and things that didn't work?
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.


Here's a picture of the conservatory


And here's another of Ted playing the Count in the banqueting hall.


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.

This is the market in Yalta, one of the best I've seen,
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

From Cologne I started wandering East. I noticed a town called Waldeck on the map, which reminded me of a fantastic book by a young and rather beautiful Jewish banker's daughter called Rosie. She fled from Berlin and the Nazis in 1938, went to New York and became an American journalist. Then she went to Romania in 1940 when the Nazis were taking it over, and lived there for more than a year (very courageous for a Jewess) so that she could write about it. She even had an affair with a high-ranking Nazi officer. Incredible! Apparently she was married to a certain Baron Waldeck, and used his name on the book.
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.

Here's my bike in the village.
This style of building is called fachwerk

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.

Then it was time to go to my first rally, at Gieboldehausen.
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.

Here's the post rally breakfast scene

After that I started to ride south. I was really enjoying the 650 Funduro. It dates back to '97, single female owner, ten thousand miles, a steal really for 2000 euros, and I've got those soft black Australian bags slung across the back. I'm having a bit of trouble with the gearing at slow speeds but I'll get used to it (or maybe change it). I asked my German friends to tell me where to visit on my way to Slovenia and they all said 'Go to Bamberg' - So I did. Manfred's Dad used to take him there once every year, and I went to the same hotel, the Weyrich.

Bamberg is a really beautiful old German city and here are some pictures

This is the old town hall.

Next day I had a leisurely ride to visit friends near Augsburg, and went through stunning countryside. Germany is densely populated, but manages to hide the fact quite well. There were some stunning views, like the one below.
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.

From Augsburg I went over to Munich and then south across a bit of Austria, (avoiding the motorway becase they make you buy a vignette to ride on them) and then came over into Slovenia. Maribor, where I was going, is fairly close to the border of this little country. I came through Slovenia on my way back from the world three years ago, but I wasn't this far north. It's taken me a while to get used to the idea of it being an independent country, but along with many others I have conceived a great admiration for it. It appears to be both rural and prosperous, and that's a hard trick to pull off.
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.

I couldn't believe I was doing this.

Well, it turned out to be a very pleasant experience. Michael Krauser is the son of the man who used to build boxes for BMWs and started the rally. It's been going for ages, and Michael keeps it going in memory of his father. He and his wife have become expert at planning routes and organising it so that it works. Can you imagine a string of bikes a mile long winding along small back roads without getting tangled up? Well they manage it brilliantly. And the locals, who don't get to cross the road for half an hour, seemed to love it. Slovenia is a kind of rural paradise. I heard at least two people say they were determined to move there.

Michael doesn't do boxes any more. He does sidecars,
and I think they're beauties

The rallies move around every year and some people have been going to them for decades. Some of the better riders sign up as Z-men. They are the marshals, who learn the routes and get the group through the difficult bits.

Here's Alain Boxe, marshalling the masses.
He's an old hand on this rally and
loves it. Ignore the trucks. They're nothing to do with us.

.

I was there for four days, and then went south on my way to Italy. Half way along the highway to Ljubliana (the capital) I saw a sign for a motorcycle museum, and peeled off for a look. I think the village was called Vransko. I wrote it down and lost the note, but the museum was great - for the atmosphere as much as the exhibits. It was all put together by one man, Petya Grom, as a hobby. He's been collecting since the early 80s, but now it's become serious. His son said Petya would never let me take pictures, but when I told Petya I'd been twice round the world and wanted to put photos on my web site he was nice enough to invite me in. The picture you saw at the beginning was of a bike that had two gear boxes (among other things) that were connected, so that you could run in nine (I think it was nine, maybe more) gears.

Here's Petya, with the Indian
he rode all over Europe

I took a lot of pictures, of course, and didn't have time to find out too much about the bikes, but maybe it will inspire some people to visit him and that lovely country. I'll put the pictures on a separate page which you can go to at the end of this journal because I haven't found out yet how to put an anchor in the text to bring you back here.

Petya's wife has entered into the spirit of it.
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.

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.
I found a very nice, comfortable and inexpensive hotel called the Alpi. Here it is, on a pedestrian street:

They tucked the bike in behind the kitchen and I wandered off around this fairyland of a town.

There was a very attractive park right in the middle, between the cathedral
and the town hall, and I found a piece of art work there that really impressed me

I bought some cheese, naturally, but it was disappointing. A nice texture, but very bland. Franco was quite scornful. He said it was for invalids. His mother used to give it to him when he was sick as a child.

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 .

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