Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Beijing
October 24 2000
———
Chris
I packed slowly in the grey light of dawn then sat on a half-rotten log next to a stun-
ted apple tree. Tim was cooking breakfast - our last breakfast - and I was filling in
the final few pages of what would be my last letter to Nat for a good long while.
Tim served up and we ate, mostly in silence.
'Guess this is the last time I'll ever have to wash this pot,' Tim remarked as he
scraped the last granules of semolina from the corners.
I smiled. In my opinion, what he did to that pot every couple of days could
hardly be called
washing
. 'Yeah, I guess so. Are you taking it home with you then?'
I asked.
'Bloody oath!' he replied, emphatically. 'This pot has some great memories.
Some of the best times of the entire trip -
my
best memories, anyway - are of eat-
ing.'
'Yeah.' I laughed.
'How about you? Are you taking yours home? It'd be a shame not to. Yours is a
good pot.' Tim's question held a hint of sadness. I smiled for a moment as I looked
at the dented blackened thing in my hands. The inside was tarnished and the out-
side was coated in layer upon layer of hardened black tar, a residue that had built
up over the course of around 500 campfires. I found myself remembering some of
the more memorable moments of our incredible journey. There was the one time,
recently, when the stove had died for the first time and we'd been forced to burn
horse shit. And another, back in summer, when we'd nearly started a bushfire. Then
there was that time on the
BAM
- in the rain at two in the morning - the day I'd
tried to alter our bikes. And not to forget that campsite a few weeks earlier when
we'd burnt half a ton of wood while we sat up into the early hours of the morn-
