Ted Talks

Well, it's about time Adeena finally let me say something! Jeepers!! - I get lugged around the freaking planet for four and a half years and dragged through all sorts of shit being tied to bicycles and motorbikes and yachts and then she goes and shares her side of the near death experience (because lets be honest, every adventure has a near death experience) seeing some positive light and being all optimistic about our failed suicide attempts that I tried to talk her out of... what the flip?

Central Coast, Australia

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Somewhere, Vietnam

Martinique

Colon, Panama

No, I think the only reason she keeps me around is because nobody else is stupid enough to venture out with her. Don't get me wrong, she really is a lovely girl; but she's clearly flipping unlucky, or got terrible karma, or something!
I mean, how many people do you know who have been shipwrecked and marooned on a desert island, been attacked by both dogs and pirates, fallen into a volcano, had far too close for comfort unplanned encounters with sharks and lions and komodo dragons and molestorisers and a leopard and cassowaries, been involved in 8 motorbike and 9 bicycle crashes, lost their rigging and got stuck at sea for months...!? The answer I'm sure you'll agree is one: Adeena.
Actually, I'll be honest - the only reason I stick around is because I can't run away - my legs are stuffed!

You don't have to look hard to see how I've deteriorated over the years

No, I really don't get it! She's on this big mission to flightlessly travel from Australia to Spain and after 5 years and a month, she's 3944 km further away than she was when she started.
Yes, okay I'll give her credit - she's gotten close - she's dragged me through some 27 countries and we've been around the world once, but how do you just miss Spain? It's right in the middle!

And don't even get me started on accommodation!
Adeena's happy to sleep in a cave or on a beach, or in a weed plantation, or a cinema, or restaurant, or on a strangers floor - but that's only because I'm her freaking pillow. Give me a night at the Hilton for once?? Although they probably won't let her in - she doesn't have shoes.

A bar in Malaysia

On a stranger's floor in Lankawi when she lost me for 3 days.

This is not okay!

Yes this looks like an ideal setting, but after the sun disappeared, this transformed into a bed for the night.

Adeena's definition of luxury accommodation: camping

Yes she got me my own passport - but I know they're thinking it every time I walk through border control- "Wonder what he's laced with?" - Right? No normal grown up carries a teddy my size with them unless they're up to no good. Do you know what it's like to be scanned and dogged and constantly probed by weird men and hairy ladies in uniforms?
And on that note too - it's thanks to her that I've had so many run ins with the law and it's upholders.

Orange isn't even my colour!

Okay, it's not all bad.
I've seen and experienced some amazing things that most people can only dream of.
And being the cute furry co-gypsy has some perks

I'm not normally into men, but I'll tolerate this kind of thing

No, it's a hard life being the side-kick; but Adeena promises that this year will be different!
It's only January and she has already locked in 2 flights (which is a lot for someone who doesn't fly), a bicycle tour, a family reunion, and a shower.
She's even talking about finishing both her circumnavigation and this crazy mission to Spain.
It might actually be a good year.
No, stuff that, it's going to be freaking fantastic! 

Happiness [and why you should laugh at those more miserabler]

I always smile a little bit more when I see miserable people – they always remind me how ridiculous it is to not be happy.

I took a walk to the shops the other day and, seeing as there was still daylight, I took the short cut through the park (at night it converts into makeshift homeless housing and I don’t like to disturb meal times because I know they don’t get much protein in their diets). I stopped to watch the tiniest human running through clusters of pigeons. The birds would fluster a couple of feet up in the air making her vanish in a cloud of feathers and then settle down in circles around her again so that she  could do it again. And again. And again. Her laughter filled even the furtherest corners of the park.

The little walk got me thinking about my happiest moments [enter cloudy fade back walk down memory lane]…

At age 2, my first ever memory, was sitting in the nurse’s office at the Joburg Gen hospital waiting for my dad to finish surgery. The nurses all knew me well because I apparently used to cry if dad didn’t take me in to work with him. It’s a very bizarre memory because all I remember is kicking my legs back and forth and humming quietly and a smiley nurse handing me a lemon cream. I was the happiest kid south of the equator that day.

A few years later, at 8ish I think, after months of picking up rusty coins on sidewalks and saving tuck shop money and money that was probably meant to have been put in the offering basket at church, I remember calculating that I finally had enough money saved to go to Gold Reef City – South Africa’s best theme park (actually at that time I was pretty sure that I thought it to be the world’s best theme park).  My mother walked into my bedroom and told me she’d found the puppy she had promised me for my last birthday and that on the weekend we could go to the theme park with my two besties and collect my collie (who was to later to be known as Frisbee). I spent the better part of an hour jumping up and down in excitement. I didn’t have a care in the world.

So in all truth, I think this might have been a picture of Lassie, my brother's dog... but picture a much cuter version of this guy!

…And then there was finally breaking free of high school… getting my driver’s license and first car… the first [and only] time I got 100% for a major varsity exam [without studying or caring that I hadn’t]… there was the first full year I made it through without needing crutches…the first kiss…

The joy of almost beating a monk at am wrestling

The joys of time spent with good friends

The joys of hitch hiking

There were all the joys that came with the gypsy life... And there was the inexplicable joy that came when, back in 2010, I accidently found myself sitting on a plane home after years of being away. And even more joy came as I touched down in Joburg and found my unsuspecting mother proudly waving around a sign that read “Marijuana” expecting my Romanian friend instead of myself.  We both cried and laughed at the same time while airport security kept a vigilant watch from nearby.

You wouldn't thin a mall airport sign could bring you to tears...

Reunioning with mum...

Last year in Vietnam I found myself alone, in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain. Visibility was so bad that I couldn’t see anything and I’d almost had head on collisions with cars 3 times as I rode my trusty scooter down what would have been a picturesque mountain pass had the weather obliged. I stopped to have a quick break from uber concentration the road demanded and then my bike wouldn’t start. I shed a couple of tears – but the misery didn’t last very long because it suddenly dawned on me that I was in one of the most beautiful places in the world in a culture I knew nothing about with only a giant wet teddy bear for company and I burst out laughing because that is exactly where I wanted to be – that sort of adventure was more than most people even dream of.

The road out of Delat, Vietnam

Similarly, after abandoning our self-constructed raft in Malaysia, after watching our hard work and many earthly belongings finding new homes in the depth of the ocean, as we swam for hours to try and reach the nearest shore – singing and laughing to distract ourselves from the harsh reality that our lives were actually in very real danger – Happiness hit me like a heard of frigid elephants: how many people get shipwrecked? How many people ever get to swim for their lives? And I was in good company too – if I was going to die (and I really really really didn’t want to), I couldn’t imagine a better way to go about it.

While I cycled the 20+ km uphill to work on Saturday I first got pinged by a horse carriage and then hit by a boat and again I burst out laughing. The ridiculousness of having to work weekends for the foreseeable future – of cycling ridiculous distances to a ridiculous job – and being clipped by ridiculous vehicles that shouldn’t be on the road in the first place made me look at life afresh again. There really is no point in being unhappy – ever! – There is ALWAYS something to smile about!   

There’s no formula for happiness – it’s simply making the most of where you are while you’re there. And changing your perspective. You might be having a really bad day but if you look at it from a different angle you might find you are exactly where you want to be. 

How to be a Sort-of-Proffessional-Long-Distance-Cycler-Person 101

So I've been pretending to be a cyclist for a whole week now and I have much advice for all aspiring future long distancesers. And while I know you think I might not be the best person to get advice from with me being 27, homeless, unmarried, and unemployed, and so on and so forth; but I am wise far beyond my ripe old age and my mother says she's proud of me anyway so I think you probably should listen up. Ok? Good. Now shut up and absorb wisdom.

1)  Firstly to be a professional biker type you should probably be in a reasonably sound shape first. You know, maybe walk the dog once in a while or if you don't have one, race your grandma around the block.... even kicking the dog creates some muscle and let's be honest, in today's world every little helps. 

2)  Secondly, and this is a big one, don't start cycling in a mountain range. I know it might sound all romanticized and what not but it isn't. It just sucks. It sucks a lot. But at least there is pretty scenery to enjoy while you throw up from overexertion.

3)  Keep your luggage light. I know a 75 litre backpack might not look like much but it throws your bike a little off balance. I also strongly disadvise the carryance of oversized stuffed toys, while they may appear awesome (actually, let's be honest, they are awesome) when strapped to the back of your bike,  they tend to get stuck in wheels and local kids try and grab them and well, they just aren't quite ideal. 

4)  Don't buy a chinese bicycle. The wheels tend to solidify with the body of the bicycle making riding a lot harder than it should be if not impossible. Also on occasion the handlebars tend to follow there own minds and duck and dive making breaking and gear changing a nightmare and this will conveniently happen while you're racing downhill.

5)  Don't tell you cycle buddy that you'll meet up in the next town when they have all the local currency on them. It really does suck when you ride the last 30 km without a drop of water....

6)  Don't cycle at night. Even if it is only 21 km in the dark... You tend to not realise that you have a flat tyre, especially when you don't have any lights (or you forgot to bring batteries) and then a sporadic thunderstorm breaks out and you get drenched and miserable and end up sleeping under a fruit stand on the side of the street where mosquitoes molestorise you and frogs don't shut up. 

7)  Take some tools with you. Even when you have a puncture repair kit and a spare tube and pump you might just realise at that inopportune moment, 14 km from the next town, that your wheels don't have quick release and have to push.

8)  Buy gloves or grow a pair of man hands - blisters suck and you get to the point where you can't even change gears anymore. Gears are important. I know this now know.

9) Don't underestimate the ability to bruise... you won't know where they come from or why they hurt so much, but before you know it your whole body will be a bruise....

9)  Don't start your journey without realising there is no physical way to cycle over 2000 km in 3 weeks... because at some point you're going to have to start hitch hiking to your friends wedding with your bike!!!

Battered Buttocks

My bum is blue.

Let me rewind a little so that you don't mistake me for a wierdo...

It was a dark and stormy day down in Can Tou, Southern Vietnam and I was boarding a bus. A local bus. A little orange bus that had Teddy stuffed into the luggage department for the first time ever... I was headed for Saigon, a trip that should have taken 3 1/2 hours maximum. 4 hours in I had one man drooling on my left shoulder after he mistook it for a pillow whilst the woman sat in the aisle next to me had donated me one of her plethora of children - the one who I can almost assuredly say needed a nappy change - and placed her on my lap... 7 hours later when I finally arrived I found myself lost and confused in the biggest city I'd visited in a while, swarmed by motto drivers that both wanted my money and my bear. While lurking the streets in search of anything English, I swore I'd never take another Vietnamese bus.

... This is how I found myself the proud owner of Percy, my 97cc fake Honda Dream lovingly referred to as the "Family Vehicle" in Saigon. Little Percy raced over hills and rice paddys and carried me the 2254 km to Ha Noi, the capital (I think) where I handed him over to Australian Ian who I hope is treating him with all the love and compassion deserved by such a humble [slightly gay] steed!!

It was only after he was out of my life that I discovered that there is only a bus towards Laos - no trains or boats or ox wagons - only busses!! I began to panic. I mean it was unbelievable - how dare they limit their transportation options? Dangnabbit. I wasn't taking any of it!

It dawned on me that hitch hiking was probably my best option but I was sternly warned not to do it alone so I began the hunt for company. I plastered posters around the city and on-line and became that annoying person that joins your table and disturbs your meal to pester you about things you couldn't possibly want.

I'd been in Ha Noi for almost ten days already and needed out. The only other person I knew who wasn't taking the bus was Rohan and he'd just purchased a bicycle...

It was over lunch on Tuesday that his friends led me to contemplate the cycle - no mention of course that he had actually done long distance cycling before or that he fitness levels resembled that of a Kenyan olympic sprinter. But the idea was there...

On Wednesday I awoke sold on the idea and roamed the streets in search of a worthy steed (I was hoping for pink or green or rusty), some luggage carriers and a bell (you can't have a bicycle without a bell). And then I was set - what more do you need??

Thursday (Yesterday I think) was departure day, and I woke up excited-to-the-point-that-you-almost-wet-yourself only to realise that there was no physical way to strap all my earthly belongings to my bike let alone pedal them over mountain ranges. Departure was delayed as I shipped 11.36 Kilograms of useless hogwash to mum in China and then delayed again as I discovered Teddy missing. Perhaps I shouldn't have put him in the shower... now everyone wants to cuddle him. Whore.

Post officing... enjoy mum!

About 34 km into yesterday's cycle Rohan taught me that bicycles have gears (I'm still a little perplexed by them though) - but after 80 something Km we pulled into Ho Bihn and celebrated life with a quality feast involving copious amounts of Com (rice) and tofu.

Today was a bit of a different story. It was about an hour into this mornings ride that I realized why most people invest in cushioned bicycle seats and why everyone obtains some level of fitness before attempting to cycle through mountain ranges and why you don't see anyone else with a giant Teddy bear strapped to their bicycle. I of course had acquired neither and of the latter I'm not too fond at present. I'm proud to say however that after today's 71 km cycle (At least 65 of those uphill), I've become a skilled walker of the bicycle and with my knees refusing to bend and my bum an unhealthy shade of whale skin blue, I've got to do it all again tomorrow. And the next day. And the and the one after that. Potentially for the next very very long time.

I said it before in the days of lonely motorbike breakdownages, but this is why most people take the bus... 

Get me to the Church on Time

It's recently been bought to my attention that I have a wedding in 3 weeks. Not mine. No. That would be more worrying (mostly because I plan to elope and you can't pre-plan elopage).

Despite functioning as my moral reasoning on a frequent basis over the past 14 years, I need to express my annoyance at both my friend's choice of location and especially the timing for her wedding - Koh Samui (Thailand) - April 3rd. Seriously?? Koh Samui? I was in the area in January. I'm now 2163 km away in Hanoi, Vietnam and I don't fly. Flying isn't good for you!

I've spent the last two days seeking hitch hiking companions to avoid the 90 odd hour bus journeys and failed - quite miserably really... my last emaily reply was this:

Adeena,

Sorry, when I read about your plans I immediately became worried for 

you. Do not do this hitching please.

Even if you are the fattest ugliest horniest woman in the world you

are asking nee begging for trouble.

You plan to hitchhike through a couple of countries where Asian women

are kidnapped and sold in to sexual slavery.

Your a white woman.  DO you want to be trafficed like a piece of meat?

Beaten and starved into submission repeatedly raped?  Used like a rag?

I don't think you want that kind of adventure.  

A rape kit is some equipment that a western police department uses to

gather evidence after a rape.

Good luck,

J......

My newest steed... I'm absolutely terrified!!!

And I have decided I don't want any of that really - Asian food is far to good to be starved from. I really really don't.  So with three weeks to go to cross three countries I've done the most logical thing really I've just walked the streets of Hanoi and bought a good "new design bike" (definitely Chinese) my newest trusty steed. How I'm going to fit my massive bags, my massiver bear and bulging belly onboard is the first challenge and then it'll all be smooth sailing I'm sure... the route begins with some of the world's best traffic before hitting one of the world's most impressive mountain ranges.

Rohan, my bicycle buddy - he actually rides bikes and his bike's not even Chinese....

HANOI: It's always good to not be Dead.

Phong Nha... somewhere in Vietnam

It really is good to not be dead. I'm grateful for every minute of undeadliness and hope to maintain it for quite some time to come.Years even.

2254 km of epicness from Saigon, I've arrived in Hanoi. And despite the four flat tyres, the snapped swing arm, the dismantled chain guard, the destroyance of my shocks, the driving straight through a road block, the death of my battery and my spark plugs and my hooter, the getting pinned under my bike twice - once in the middle of the Ho Chi Minh highway - and the incessant rain, I've loved every second of it - every single second!!! I still can't actually believe it's over. I made it to Hanoi. Percy made it to Hanoi!

Driving with a gang has been amazing too. Coming down the Hai Van Pass brought saw the most spectacular sunset of my life and having people to share the incredibleness with was a must. As were the thousands of jaggered cliffs that littered the vast green grey terrain.  

Sunset at the bottom of the Hai Van pass

Every time we stopped to ask directions or recount near death experiences with cows and busses; school kids would flock to admire our dirty bikes, whiter skins, and Teddy

The final 15 km were the hardest of the trip. The roadworks had busses and trucks and bulldozers and livestock merged on a single lane pot-holed track where more motorbikes than there are cockroaches in Africa raced to random destinations carrying their families and fridges and goats. Only 5 km out of town I lost the gang and spent a couple of hours searching the old city for our preascertained finish line. But at 17-54 on a Sunday, with only 6 minutes to spare on happy hour beer, I pulled into Hanoi and parked my Percy alive - an accomplishment I still can't fathom!

Ian, new rider of Percy

Two days ago I sold my beloved scooter to Ian, the tallest Australian I've met in a while and he's just began the racing to Saigon to make a flight. I do hope Percy treats him nicely!

All I have left now are a few cuts, burns, scars and bruises as memories.

It's hard to believe that despite the stampedes of cows and cars and busses that have run at me I'm still alive  - I must have cheated death more times in Vietnam than any other country I've visited before. And it's not over yet either - I still need to flee the country - I'm not sure where to go from here - but it still won't be onto a bus... life's too short for busses!!!

Saying the final goodbye's in Hanoi...
please note how I hold two drinks in hand to try and cope
with the emotional torment