Home at Last and time for bed

So it's hard to describe how nice it is to be out of hospital today and back home with Angie and Scarlett.

Now before we go any further please understand the scale of my misdemeanours, after putting Angie through a week of stress and worry, yesterday was her birthday and I failed to get even a card! Maybe I will be in the dog house for a little longer than originally expected.

So a big thank you to all my friends and family who have called and sent messages, I feel really guilty because other than a couple of dodgy days the whole adventure had been super brilliant and I in no way deserve any sympathy from anyone. Currently I am just a bit weary, but overall I expect to be back to 100% in a week or so.

Lets really hear it for Pembury and Maidstone Hospitals, fantastic teams, beautiful people who have given me a complete overhaul, flushed out the dodgy plumbing and set me up for a super quick recovery, with luck a small adjustment to my hand and I will be back to full function - if anyone wants to rush me to a pub I have been told to flush the kidneys copiously - so all clear there.

In some respects I am a little sad over having dropped out before Mongolia, I was looking forward to seeing that amazing country and hopefully making more friends, but it is what it is and it was fantastic as far as I got. Would I do it again? yes in an instant, even to the same outcome. The people I met and the friends I made were more than worth the difficulties and I think that I have learned a lot about myself and other cultures from the whole experience.

Max and his team are still making great progress, the Saxo has lost its sump guard and radiator fan courtesy of James hitting a big rock, but nice men with big hammers have got them back on the road and they are doing fine.

Here is a picture of James when I passed them in Russia, doing the walk of shame back to a policeman's hut, pulled over for nothing but did not stop fast enough and incurred an immediate demand for money in passport, I donated some miniature Jack Daniels bottles that did the trick!

I have so many stories to tell that I should write a book - I suspect that would be preferred or I will bore you to death even more than usual.

This is probably the last proper blog update, I will add some more photos and notes about some of the places I stayed but for now go find Max Chapman on Instagram or Facebook and you can enjoy an altogether more alcoholic road trip to Mongolia.

Thanks for the charity donations - Cool Earth and the Nava Kiram Orphanage are truly grateful for your support and will say prayers in thanks for you.

A slightly less fat man, minus a small motorcycle, is now wobbling off to bed!

Four days to go and starting to panic about food, money and wet wipes

Less than four days to go and yesterday my brand new panniers split when I forced a final (one too many) can of chain cleaner into them. Bugger - not much hope that they will last the trip intact especially now that I have had to sew them up with cotton thread designed to hold my trouser turn ups in place.

What's killing my luggage is the twenty days rations from Expedition foods. This stuff is a good as it gets, designed for events like the Iron Man or proper mountain climbers, it packs 800 calories into a small pack that you bring back to life by adding hot water - nice and simple. My problem is that acceptable fresh food will be easily available for the first half of my trip, but is not expected in the Siberian mountains or the middle of the Gobi desert etc,  so I have to lug this lot nearly 10,000 miles before I get to eat it.



Looking on the bright side when I find other teams marooned at a Russian border crossing that's not playing ball, I could be the next best thing to a Domino Pizza Delivery.....

Final item today weighing in at a couple of pounds was the month's supply of wet wipes, essential in Eastern Europe where the concept of toilet paper has yet to be understood!

Toady I invested in a Post Office Travel Money Card Plus - it allows you to pre-load Dollars or Euros and use them anywhere in the world without involving your bank (ie avoid fraud). If it gets lost or stolen you call a control center and they courier a new card to you complete with your remaining balance. Charges are very low and it works like a debit card/ cash machine card and can be topped up from someone at home or by using their mobile phone app - all very sensible but probably wont work in the really off track places where a few American dollars still rule.

How to turn a perfectly sensible motorcycle into an adventure motorcycle for almost nothing

So here is a Sinnis Apache



Note the luxurious seat, huge luggage store and superb weather protection.....

What was needed was a few quick changes to make life possible:

1. By an Air Hawk cushion (kind of like a large woopee cushion to help your bum survive.
2. Change the chain and sprockets to heavy duty and make the rear sprocket smaller to give better speed at less finger-numbing revs.
3. Add a charging socket to the handlebars for keeping the iphone alive.
4. Add hand guards to the handlebars to avoid hurt fingers when you fall off.
5. Add foam hand grips for comfort.
6. Completely cover the bike in soft luggage and rear racks.

The Bike Bit

So you may have noticed that every year about 300 teams set off on the Mongol Rally in cars. Not very big cars and most of the time not very nice cars, in fact something you stole from your Granny is likely to best fit the rules.

And the rules are - no engines bigger than 1000cc and the more inappropriate the better! Unless......
you want to go by motorbike. So before you start talking about big BMW's or KTM's as used by our film star friends, the rally rule for bikes is no bigger than 125cc.

Now to get this in context, my friend Jeremy has a ride-on lawn mower with a bigger engine.

Enter stage left Anthony Jackson of Sinnis Motorcycles Brighton. Anthony is a veteran of the Mongol Rally and fairly recently rode one of his own bikes to Mongolia with minimal drama. He did his best to drown himself and the bike at one river crossing, but he probably needed a good wash by
then.
 

Anthony has been gracious enough to not only inspire me to take on the Rally, but he has also cut me a cracking deal on one of his Sinnis Apache bikes plus the handful of spares that I will need.

The madness of the Mongol Rally

How it all began reprinted from the Adventurists web site.

So back in a time when the world had only just realised that the millenium bug was bullshit, Mr Tom and Mr Joolz lived in the Czech Republic. They were studying fine art, which gave them an excess of free time and an excuse to be drunk. At one of the frequent ferment-induced moments an idea arrived. They would try and drive the tiny sack of motoring shite, a Fiat 126, that they had bought recently from a con-man in northern Prague to the most stupid place they could think of. That place turned out to be Mongolia and with no preparation, no luggage and no spare clothes or even pants they set forth to reach their goal.And failed. But they had so much fun in the attempt that they swore to try again.

Mr Tom decided that this was something the rest of the world needed so the Mongol Rally was born. A website was made up and the invitation to join was sent out. In the summer of 2004 just 6 cars rolled out the back of a bar in Shoreditch, London to face the world's first Mongol Rally. 4 of them made it to the finish in Mongolia; the first of which contained a couple of bedraggled ex-art students in a completely f***** Fiat 126. Word quickly spread and the rally grew. Now, we think it's probably the biggest road rally in the world. It's undoubtedly the best.