Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
up to his waist before performing an agile back-flip to land on his feet - all within
an instant of going down!
He was facing in the opposite direction, but his legs were still pumping. He
sprinted triumphantly back to pick up his jacket and hat and the rest, from there,
was a piece of cake.
———
We cycled steadily eastwards. We did our shopping in small towns and met a broad
mix of people along the way. We met a convoy of lively central Asian truck drivers
transporting tons of fresh produce from Turkmenistan to Krasnojarsk. They pulled
us over for an impromptu feast of vodka and juicy tomatoes while showing us bul-
let holes in their trailer covers that were the result of a run-in with armed highway-
men in Uzbekistan. We stopped for lunch on the banks of a lonely creek and shared
the freshly cooked catch of a silent but smiling boy who'd cycled an ancient bike
fifteen kilometres from his village to spend the day fishing with a homemade rod.
I stopped by the roadside one day and listened for an hour as an old man who was
selling potatoes from a bucket explained his philosophy on the limits of personal
responsibility. Tim, the lucky guy, was invited on the spur of the moment to be the
guest of honour at a wedding reception.
The most amazing encounter we had was with a lone Russian traveller by the
name of Gregory. Gregory was a remarkable-looking man. He was tall and skinny
with a clean-shaven scalp, deep, furrowed smile lines around his eyes and a gigant-
ic, ruddy brown bush of a beard that extended halfway down his chest. He was
wearing a deeply stained shirt, heavy trousers and a pair of shoes held together with
old scraps of leather and bits of string.
Like us, he was travelling by bike, a typical single-gear Soviet machine with a
cracked and pointy-looking leather saddle. The bike was laden with bulging white
potato sacks that hung behind the seat and over the handlebars. Gregor introduced
himself to me with a twitch of his demonstrative moustache. 'Hello! My name's
Gregory. I've just been talking to your friend here and admiring his bike.'
'Hi, I'm Chris.' We shook hands. 'You've probably already told Tim, but where
are you heading to? You're the first traveller we've met in five months!'
'Yeah,' he chuckled. 'I've been on the road for most of the last fifteen years and
I've only met a few, too.'
'Wow.' I gaped.
