Excerpts from Hit the Road, Jac!
STRAITS of MALACCA
We now had little food and could not use the wind so fuel was getting desperately low. Because the wiring was not connected from the engine, the battery was so exhausted that we couldn't use the auto pilot and had to steer manually day and night which was tiring. Marcel blamed me for bringing bad karma to the boat. "I could cut you up into little bits and throw you overboard or creep up on you and push you into the sea on your night watch. Nobody would know or ask questions", he said to me one night. "So..." I said to myself, "THAT'S what the machete is for."
INDIA
Arriving in Calcutta late in the evening we were unable to find a hotel that would accept foreigners so we did what other people were doing and slept on the pavement. I awoke in the night to the sound of rustling plastic bags and found a man in a loincloth trying on my glasses! When I objected, he took them off, shrugged and shuffled away seemingly dissatisfied with the fit or magnification!
SYRIA
It took me a couple of nights in Hama to realise that although it said ‘Hotel’ outside, I was staying in a brothel. I did wonder why the room I was staying in was furnished with pink and red fluffy cushions on a soft double bed with perfume bottles decorating the dressing table. I wondered too, why all the other guests were slinky females who didn’t look a bit like they would carry a rucksack. Then there was the owner, a big, pale, moist man who was always there in his Arab robe looking benevolent but shifty. “Call me Papa,” he said suggestively. A couple of times he stroked my hair, making me feel uncomfortable. It suddenly clicked when I noticed men sitting around in the foyer, waiting, and Papa was receiving sheaves of notes from the women. I paid up and left but not before Papa kissed me. Ugh!
INDIA
To my delight we went off-road and slept outside by rivers and in orchards. Twice my bike fell on me during the night, soaking me in petrol as I slept beside it in mango groves with soft ground. So I tied it to a tree like a rancher securing a horse at a corral.
PAKISTAN
I was leading on the narrow winding track when suddenly from a left-hand bend, a cherry-red 4WD truck hurtled towards me. With the river a steep drop to the right, and sheer mountain to my left, I had nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait for the inevitable crash. I looked down and saw shin-bone sticking through a gash in my jeans and that my foot was facing backwards.
AUSTRALIA
An apostlebird, hit by a passing road-train was flapping about in the road. It looked like one wing was broken. As I picked it up, it looked cross rather than frightened but made a dreadful racket until I put it in my bike cover bag. Apart from its wing, it looked robust so I decided to adopt it, envisioning it travelling with me, sitting on the handlebar and eating out of my hand. The roadhouse had some bird seed and I rode on to Fletcher Creek with a growing love and sense of responsibility towards this injured creature. The campground had picnic tables and a group of birdwatchers who, I hoped, would give bird-care advice. But they were unimpressed with such a lowly bird and not a little disgruntled that I had seen some rare Great Australian Bustards on the way that they had spent days searching for. So they ignored my request for advice, dispersing and settling round their campervans like waterfowl on a billabong.
My bird took a drink from my little finger dipped in water and ate some seed from a coffee jar lid. It was calm only if its head was in the bag. My sleeping spot was between a picnic table and my bike. I tied some string to the bird’s spindly leg to keep it from wandering away, securing the other end to the bike. As usual I slept like a log after some apple and cinnamon tea and on waking, remembered the bird and sat up. There was a scattering of feathers but no apostlebird. The string was still there and attached to the end was my bird’s leg. I cried out in horror and dismay. Something had come along and eaten it. A snake? A hawk? A dingo? I’ll never know. I felt guilty for my lack of diligence and went for consolation to a sympathetic couple in their camper van.
AUSTRALIA
I shouldn’t have been riding at dusk; kangaroos come out to feed and although running away when they see you, get in a panic and run straight back. So I arrived at Adavale with an injured kangaroo that had launched itself at my rear wheel just after it had run away. I’d scooped it up and done the ‘this is my pet’ thing again and rode up to the pub crying for help with this creature. “Let me deal with that young fella for you,” said the kind man at the pub as he took it round the back. I heard a shot and my pet was dead. The tears wouldn’t stop and I had to be given several beers. I felt so guilty.
AUSTRALIA
It was that ‘three fingers above the horizon’ time. I should look for an overnight retreat. I might have spent the night undisturbed in the middle of the track for there were no road-trains, trucks or other traffic. I considered an area under a tree within sight of the road but it didn’t feel right so although wary of bull dust in the approaching dusk, went on, unsure why I was doing it. I raised my head and shouted, “OK...If there IS a God up there, I’d like a roast dinner, good company...preferably female, and a comfy bed somewhere nice, please!” I hadn’t seen anyone for two days. I finished with “Ha! There’s a challenge for you!” I’d probably have my usual sardines and rice and sleep under another tree somewhere further on. Blast! No more trees. I admonished myself for passing the one tree for miles. Ahead were some white boxes in the distance. They became portable cabins as I approached. “I’ll hide behind those.” A woman emerged from one of the cabins. “Crikey!” she cried. “Another woman! Can you stay? I’m cooking roast chicken and vegetables for us all”. Ruth and her husband ran an earthmoving business with enormous plant, making roads to nearby oilfields. That night I had my roast dinner in good company including my request for a woman to talk with. I contributed some wine which I always carried. The cherry on the cake was a night sleeping in a cosy road-train cabin. I didn’t know what to think. That was some challenge and it was fulfilled with the extra treat of a night in a road-train. Hmm! Was there a God? Outback gods having fun? Or just coincidence? I was in awe, whatever the reason.
Excerpts from ON THE ROAD AGAIN
BULGARIA
I thought my days of meeting bizarre people and having odd experiences were over now that I was back from my extensive motorbike journey from India to the UK. I doubted I would ever again have those "scratch your head, what happened then?" moments that I'd experienced on a daily basis for so long during that trip. Then, in 2008, a year after my return, I found myself in Bulgaria sharing a small tent with a French stranger who had just told me he'd made his living as a professional pickpocket.
ENGLAND (20 miles from home)
...I saw the queue only on rounding the bend and went bang into an orange VW Golf which, having also possibly missed the sign, had braked so hard to avoid the vehicle in front, that the rear of the car rose up. As I flew over the handle bar and onto the road, my head went under the car just before it sank down again thus trapping my head between it and the road. I lay there for a second or two and thought, "Oh well! I'm still alive and nothing hurts. Let's see if I can move everything." I started flapping my arms and legs. What a sight I must have been to people who had got out of their cars to help. All was well but I couldn't move my head. Initially unaware of what exactly had happened, I bizarrely thought, "Oh NO! My head has come off!"
FRANCE
What sort of fool stops a motorbike in the middle of the road on the sharpest, steepest bit of a Pyrenean hairpin bend?
Erm... the one on the Enfield!...
... The rider behind me had nimbly avoided bumping into me when I had been unable to locate first gear. Gingerly letting out the clutch, I was relieved that I'd found and engaged it, thus avoiding a backwards hurtle down the mountain.
IRELAND
...However, within 24 hours I was ordered out of a crowded pub. I felt ashamed but it was the bike that was with me on stage that was misbehaving, not me... prior to the Ireland trip, I had decided to give the bike a bit of a treat and had taken it to a mechanic to have an oil change, something I usually do myself. I also agreed for the carburettor to have a session in one of those ultrasonic cleaners that heats up degreaser and agitates the and dirt particles off with high pressure sound waves or some other sort of magic. After eighteen years, I thought it deserved it. But, unused to such disturbances, the bike didn't like it and leaked petrol. During questions following my talk in Sean Collins Bar in Adare, the landlord noticed a strong smell of petrol and told me to get the bike out before I blew up his pub.
CUBA (on a borrowed white 1986 750cc Chang Jiang M1S called Hector).
Just after arranging this trip, I'd learnt that the US president at the time, Barack Obama had too! And, it seemed from my contact on the island, so had the Rolling Stones who would be giving a free concert whilst I was there. Suddenly everyone wanted to be in Cuba.
GERMANY
As I approached Germany, I'd said to myself, "Whatever I do, I MUSTN'T get on an autobahn by mistake." so I kept to minor roads but then, horror of horrors, I found myself steering the bike onto a slip road leading to an autobahn. "Oh no!" I said to the bike. "We can't dilly-dally about here." To keep up with the thankfully light traffic, I twisted the throttle. The bike accepted the challenge and I really felt that it was enjoying the speed.
AUSTRALIA
As soon as the bike arrived in Australia, every blessed thing that could go wrong, went wrong, as if an evil spell had been cast during its flight over. Or was it the stars... was Mercury in Venus or something? This time, instead of pleasantly curious occurrences leaving me scratching my head in happy disbelief, my motorcycle trip seemed to have been cursed.
Of all things, it started with a particularly unlovable insect called the brown marmorated stink bug which has a voracious appetite for vegetables and fruit. Not welcome in Australia... all freight had to be thoroughly checked for the dastardly stowaways. My Enfield was not a priority for the overstretched search crew.
EPILOGUE
Sometimes, the things you learn on a journey don't hit home or make sense until some time after the journey is completed. This time, I discovered that I had completed a journey that I didn't even know I was on!
We now had little food and could not use the wind so fuel was getting desperately low. Because the wiring was not connected from the engine, the battery was so exhausted that we couldn't use the auto pilot and had to steer manually day and night which was tiring. Marcel blamed me for bringing bad karma to the boat. "I could cut you up into little bits and throw you overboard or creep up on you and push you into the sea on your night watch. Nobody would know or ask questions", he said to me one night. "So..." I said to myself, "THAT'S what the machete is for."
INDIA
Arriving in Calcutta late in the evening we were unable to find a hotel that would accept foreigners so we did what other people were doing and slept on the pavement. I awoke in the night to the sound of rustling plastic bags and found a man in a loincloth trying on my glasses! When I objected, he took them off, shrugged and shuffled away seemingly dissatisfied with the fit or magnification!
SYRIA
It took me a couple of nights in Hama to realise that although it said ‘Hotel’ outside, I was staying in a brothel. I did wonder why the room I was staying in was furnished with pink and red fluffy cushions on a soft double bed with perfume bottles decorating the dressing table. I wondered too, why all the other guests were slinky females who didn’t look a bit like they would carry a rucksack. Then there was the owner, a big, pale, moist man who was always there in his Arab robe looking benevolent but shifty. “Call me Papa,” he said suggestively. A couple of times he stroked my hair, making me feel uncomfortable. It suddenly clicked when I noticed men sitting around in the foyer, waiting, and Papa was receiving sheaves of notes from the women. I paid up and left but not before Papa kissed me. Ugh!
INDIA
To my delight we went off-road and slept outside by rivers and in orchards. Twice my bike fell on me during the night, soaking me in petrol as I slept beside it in mango groves with soft ground. So I tied it to a tree like a rancher securing a horse at a corral.
PAKISTAN
I was leading on the narrow winding track when suddenly from a left-hand bend, a cherry-red 4WD truck hurtled towards me. With the river a steep drop to the right, and sheer mountain to my left, I had nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait for the inevitable crash. I looked down and saw shin-bone sticking through a gash in my jeans and that my foot was facing backwards.
AUSTRALIA
An apostlebird, hit by a passing road-train was flapping about in the road. It looked like one wing was broken. As I picked it up, it looked cross rather than frightened but made a dreadful racket until I put it in my bike cover bag. Apart from its wing, it looked robust so I decided to adopt it, envisioning it travelling with me, sitting on the handlebar and eating out of my hand. The roadhouse had some bird seed and I rode on to Fletcher Creek with a growing love and sense of responsibility towards this injured creature. The campground had picnic tables and a group of birdwatchers who, I hoped, would give bird-care advice. But they were unimpressed with such a lowly bird and not a little disgruntled that I had seen some rare Great Australian Bustards on the way that they had spent days searching for. So they ignored my request for advice, dispersing and settling round their campervans like waterfowl on a billabong.
My bird took a drink from my little finger dipped in water and ate some seed from a coffee jar lid. It was calm only if its head was in the bag. My sleeping spot was between a picnic table and my bike. I tied some string to the bird’s spindly leg to keep it from wandering away, securing the other end to the bike. As usual I slept like a log after some apple and cinnamon tea and on waking, remembered the bird and sat up. There was a scattering of feathers but no apostlebird. The string was still there and attached to the end was my bird’s leg. I cried out in horror and dismay. Something had come along and eaten it. A snake? A hawk? A dingo? I’ll never know. I felt guilty for my lack of diligence and went for consolation to a sympathetic couple in their camper van.
AUSTRALIA
I shouldn’t have been riding at dusk; kangaroos come out to feed and although running away when they see you, get in a panic and run straight back. So I arrived at Adavale with an injured kangaroo that had launched itself at my rear wheel just after it had run away. I’d scooped it up and done the ‘this is my pet’ thing again and rode up to the pub crying for help with this creature. “Let me deal with that young fella for you,” said the kind man at the pub as he took it round the back. I heard a shot and my pet was dead. The tears wouldn’t stop and I had to be given several beers. I felt so guilty.
AUSTRALIA
It was that ‘three fingers above the horizon’ time. I should look for an overnight retreat. I might have spent the night undisturbed in the middle of the track for there were no road-trains, trucks or other traffic. I considered an area under a tree within sight of the road but it didn’t feel right so although wary of bull dust in the approaching dusk, went on, unsure why I was doing it. I raised my head and shouted, “OK...If there IS a God up there, I’d like a roast dinner, good company...preferably female, and a comfy bed somewhere nice, please!” I hadn’t seen anyone for two days. I finished with “Ha! There’s a challenge for you!” I’d probably have my usual sardines and rice and sleep under another tree somewhere further on. Blast! No more trees. I admonished myself for passing the one tree for miles. Ahead were some white boxes in the distance. They became portable cabins as I approached. “I’ll hide behind those.” A woman emerged from one of the cabins. “Crikey!” she cried. “Another woman! Can you stay? I’m cooking roast chicken and vegetables for us all”. Ruth and her husband ran an earthmoving business with enormous plant, making roads to nearby oilfields. That night I had my roast dinner in good company including my request for a woman to talk with. I contributed some wine which I always carried. The cherry on the cake was a night sleeping in a cosy road-train cabin. I didn’t know what to think. That was some challenge and it was fulfilled with the extra treat of a night in a road-train. Hmm! Was there a God? Outback gods having fun? Or just coincidence? I was in awe, whatever the reason.
Excerpts from ON THE ROAD AGAIN
BULGARIA
I thought my days of meeting bizarre people and having odd experiences were over now that I was back from my extensive motorbike journey from India to the UK. I doubted I would ever again have those "scratch your head, what happened then?" moments that I'd experienced on a daily basis for so long during that trip. Then, in 2008, a year after my return, I found myself in Bulgaria sharing a small tent with a French stranger who had just told me he'd made his living as a professional pickpocket.
ENGLAND (20 miles from home)
...I saw the queue only on rounding the bend and went bang into an orange VW Golf which, having also possibly missed the sign, had braked so hard to avoid the vehicle in front, that the rear of the car rose up. As I flew over the handle bar and onto the road, my head went under the car just before it sank down again thus trapping my head between it and the road. I lay there for a second or two and thought, "Oh well! I'm still alive and nothing hurts. Let's see if I can move everything." I started flapping my arms and legs. What a sight I must have been to people who had got out of their cars to help. All was well but I couldn't move my head. Initially unaware of what exactly had happened, I bizarrely thought, "Oh NO! My head has come off!"
FRANCE
What sort of fool stops a motorbike in the middle of the road on the sharpest, steepest bit of a Pyrenean hairpin bend?
Erm... the one on the Enfield!...
... The rider behind me had nimbly avoided bumping into me when I had been unable to locate first gear. Gingerly letting out the clutch, I was relieved that I'd found and engaged it, thus avoiding a backwards hurtle down the mountain.
IRELAND
...However, within 24 hours I was ordered out of a crowded pub. I felt ashamed but it was the bike that was with me on stage that was misbehaving, not me... prior to the Ireland trip, I had decided to give the bike a bit of a treat and had taken it to a mechanic to have an oil change, something I usually do myself. I also agreed for the carburettor to have a session in one of those ultrasonic cleaners that heats up degreaser and agitates the and dirt particles off with high pressure sound waves or some other sort of magic. After eighteen years, I thought it deserved it. But, unused to such disturbances, the bike didn't like it and leaked petrol. During questions following my talk in Sean Collins Bar in Adare, the landlord noticed a strong smell of petrol and told me to get the bike out before I blew up his pub.
CUBA (on a borrowed white 1986 750cc Chang Jiang M1S called Hector).
Just after arranging this trip, I'd learnt that the US president at the time, Barack Obama had too! And, it seemed from my contact on the island, so had the Rolling Stones who would be giving a free concert whilst I was there. Suddenly everyone wanted to be in Cuba.
GERMANY
As I approached Germany, I'd said to myself, "Whatever I do, I MUSTN'T get on an autobahn by mistake." so I kept to minor roads but then, horror of horrors, I found myself steering the bike onto a slip road leading to an autobahn. "Oh no!" I said to the bike. "We can't dilly-dally about here." To keep up with the thankfully light traffic, I twisted the throttle. The bike accepted the challenge and I really felt that it was enjoying the speed.
AUSTRALIA
As soon as the bike arrived in Australia, every blessed thing that could go wrong, went wrong, as if an evil spell had been cast during its flight over. Or was it the stars... was Mercury in Venus or something? This time, instead of pleasantly curious occurrences leaving me scratching my head in happy disbelief, my motorcycle trip seemed to have been cursed.
Of all things, it started with a particularly unlovable insect called the brown marmorated stink bug which has a voracious appetite for vegetables and fruit. Not welcome in Australia... all freight had to be thoroughly checked for the dastardly stowaways. My Enfield was not a priority for the overstretched search crew.
EPILOGUE
Sometimes, the things you learn on a journey don't hit home or make sense until some time after the journey is completed. This time, I discovered that I had completed a journey that I didn't even know I was on!