Qobuland to Tblisi - Into Georgia

May 17th Qobuland to Samaxi - I'm getting pretty sick of marriage proposals
We left Qobuland very late, making use of the luxury of our room, and I was still ill. We decided to only do the 30 kilometres to the nearby town of Samaxi, to make sure I was fully recovered (I really hope I'm not sounding like Mark Beaumont). These 30km were some of the most beautiful of the whole trip. Absolutely breathtaking. The desert had given way to beautiful windswept hills, full of soviet co-op farms.

Actually quite a lot of them had slaughter houses with pens of sheep outside, and dead ones hanging up right next to them. This wasn't so beautiful. When we arrived in Samaxi we found a hotel with a café on the ground floor and went in. So far in Azerbaijan we had barely seen any women at all, and this café was no exception. It was full of men who shamelessly stared at us. When Mum went to find out about the hotel they all descended on me. They start a perfectly innocent convo via google translate and then move on to "do you have a boyfriend?". Sometimes I invent a husband (I'm getting quite attached to him actually) but mainly I try and be as uninteresting and as unattractive as possible, like in the archers when Roy told Tracey that he likes watching BBC3 documentaries about building canals. I held them off until Mum got back and we checked in to the hotel. She went to explore the town in the afternoon which was hard work as it was built on a very steep cobbled hill. For supper we had delicious food. These vine leaf parcels filled with meat and mint and cheese, and this meat broth thing.

 The man who served us saw that we were sharing and took it upon himself to divide up the meat broth for us. There were an odd number of potatoes so he cut one in half! He gave me all the fat which was meant to be a treat - obviously not a treat for me. Anyway I hid it in my sock.

May 18th Samaxi to Vandam - Hills hills hills
We left Samaxi early and got back on the road. I was feeling better and we cracked on. The hills were hard but the view was really worth it. I honestly don't have the words to express how beautiful Azerbaijan is. I would say number 1 for me out of everywhere we've been (in terms of country consistency and not single view).

It's also so interesting! The people are also very friendly (a bit too friendly). We have to constantly refuse cups of tea and other invitations. This road was more of the same, and it flattened out a bit which was nice. We had another delicious lunch of meat on top of these potato sheets. At night we camped on the balcony of a restaurant and ate there. The man brought over the menu, which was a list of words we didn't understand. He looked at us expectantly. We shrugged. I did a very good impression of a cow and he nodded. I pointed to the first one on the list and he nodded, and then the second one, and he nodded at all of them. He kept waiting for us to make our decision. We eventually went for the top two and he looked pleased. He brought out a kebab and two pieces of steak. How we managed to order that I have no idea. At night it was surprisingly cold.

May 19th Vandam to Sheki - We meet some English people for the first time since Vientiane.
We left Vandam after the obligatory cup of tea, and made our way towards Sheki. This was more of the same, beautiful, friendly Azerbaijan. It was also sunny for the first time for us! At the bottom of the hill into Sheki we met three cycle tourists from Sheffield who are heading to China. They were all very funny, with good stories, and we stopped for a beer. One beer after a day of cycling in the sunshine is quite enough, and we fairly flew up the hill. In Sheki we stayed in the Karavansaray, an old stop for the camels on the silk road. This was really cool, with arched brick ceilings. We did find out it was newer than our house which was disappointing.

May 20th Sheki to Balakan - We're taken into a car for a three course meal.
In the morning the weather was grim. The scenery was still beautiful!

We had two choices from Sheki, a gravel road or a tarmac road, and went for the tarmac one (learning from past mistakes?) which turned out to be the first busy road we've had in ages. The rain was still pouring down and bus shelters were few and far between. We were standing by the side of the road feeling sorry for ourselves when a family stopped in their car and suggested we get in. We had lots of delicious cake and bread and cheese and salad and biscuits and chocolate and tea. The daughter was 22 and had studied English at university and was the translator. They lived in Baku and were on holiday. It was hard work getting out of the warm friendly car and back on the road but we managed it in the end. We decided to wild camp and started looking out for places. There were disappointingly few, and in the end we asked a café if we could camp there. Mum had learnt a bit of Russian previous to this trip, and I'd always thought it was a bit of a joke. I thought she could only say about 3 words, and she'd said them so often I knew them too. During our USSR time she managed to pull some Russian out the bag and by this point was communicating pretty effectively. Yes I was shocked too. I can say about 10 words in Russian but I love saying them, it makes me feel like I'm in War and Peace. Anyway we had a nice chat with the owners of the café, and then realised they were absolutely drunk. The only English they could say was "GOOD MORNING TEACHER". And they made us say "GOOD MORNING CHILDREN", so they could reply. My one word in Azer is "Yoch" which means No, and at one point I said that and they got very excited that I could speak Azerbaijani! As if I'd been hiding it for the past 40 minutes. Eventually they got called home by their wives and we got to go to bed.

May 21st Balakan to Sighnaghi - Phew that was a steep hill
First on the agenda was crossing the border, around 17 kilometres away. We were both sad to be leaving Azerbaijan, but our last feeling was not positive as the irritating border officials insisted on searching all of our bags. Anyway soon we were out and into Georgia. We'd heard there might be coffee(!!) in Georgia and in the first town there were lots of buildings with "café" written outside. Although this sounds promising, when we went into the buildings they looked as if nobody had ever been in there before. The owners were staggered. Anyway we set off. We immediately noticed that Georgian drivers were crazy. The road was the main road to Tblisi and was quite busy, and quite hilly. We were a bit stuck for where to stay, and a bit doubtful we'd get to Tblisi the next day, so we took a shortcut over an insanely steep hill, and stayed in a gorgeous hilltop village. We weren't sure where to stay and then were forced to go into a hotel by the woman who owned it. She really didn't give us a choice. On the plus side there were two other cycle tourists there!

May 22nd Sighnaghi to Tblisi - I REALLY hate capital cities
We set off very early to head for Tblisi. The road was getting busier and busier. We rode a decent amount with two other different cycle tourists - from the Basque country.

They'd been on lots of adventures. Eventually we hit the outskirts of the city. The traffic was crazy, with cars acting as if they were playing a computer game where they couldn't die. It was getting pretty late by this stage and as usual we fought a lot. Eventually we made it to Guesthouse Whiterooms. The rooms were actually white and we had a kitchen which was good! We bought a lot of food and wine and enjoyed the night before a rest day.

Q + A with Harriet 2.0

P: Hello Harriet and welcome back to phoebeharrietrtw! We're so pleased you're here again.
H: who me? I've been here all the time
P:Well, here again on the blog!
H: Who me? I might not be here for much longer, I need a sleep. What's the time?
P: 10:09. It's still early
H:
P: Right anyway, moving on to the questions. Last time we spoke we were in Thailand!
H: Crikey that was a long time ago
P: Can you tell me a bit about what's happened since then
H: I can tell you tomorrow, I'm too tired now.
P: Let's continue this tomorrow then

P: Hello again Harriet! Are you feeling more awake?
H: A little bit
P: So, can you tell me a bit about what's happened since we last spoke in thailand?
H: Oh my goodness so much has happened! We cycled through Asia getting hotter and hotter, not really sure where we were going next but knowing we were running out of time. In the end things were more or less decided for us when China refused our visas, so we hopped on a plane. A few planes actually, and ended up in Azerbaijan. It's a shame because we've missed all sorts of interesting countries and a large section of the world but we both thought we wanted to cycle home from a good distance away, and we'll be able to do that now.
P: Phew, that's exhausting me just hearing about it!
H: It exhausted you while we did it, do you remember? We're both pretty exhausted but now the end is in sight.
P: Thanks for that overview! Now let's get on with the questions.
H: Wasn't that a question?
P: What's been your favourite new food experience of the trip?
H: We've tasted so many new things that it's difficult to choose but I'm going to go for a drink. Homemade iced lemon tea. We really relied on it in Malaysia and it was cool, sweet and delicious. I would never drink it at home but maybe I will. In azerbaijan we had delicious vine leaf parcels filled with meat with cheesey stuff on top - they were very nice and I wish I could remember what they were called.
P: What's your worst food experience?
H: On the whole the food in Azerbaijan/Georgia has been delicious and a nice change from the food in South East Asia, the fried rice and noodle soup was getting a bit tedious. A downside here has been the lumps of bright pink meat hiding everywhere, like in the pancakes I had for breakfast on our first morning.
P: What's been your favourite camping spot?
H: Our wild camp in Laos, looking down the mountain valley. It was tremendous. Views to die for.
P: What's your favourite time of day?
H: If I'm honest, arriving at our destination has to be the best bit. By the end of the day, we're pretty tired and it's always nice to know that we've got somewhere to stay. A close second is morning coffee, my favourite is when we choose a nice spot by the side of the road, boil up some water and make it ourselves whilst watching the world go by.
P: What's surprised you most?
H: I hate these questions.
P: I'd be so good at answering
H: What's surprised you most then?
P: I'm constantly surprised by the niceness, friendlness and generosity of almost everyone that sees us. I imagined that maybe we would be helped a little bit along the way, but it really does feel like 7 billion people are on our side and I didn't think it would. 
H: Yes I agree with you, that surprises me. It also surprises me how kind people at home have been by following us and sending us messages. I would have thought we'd have been forgotten! Wouldn't you?
P: Ummm no I can't say that I did. Okay, I'm going to say a country and you've got to say a word.
P: Malaysia
H: Iced tea
P: Morocco 
H: Friendly
P: Senegal
H: Harrassing
P: Paraguay
H: Pilgrimage
P: Chile 
H: Sand
P: New Zealand
H: Geology
P: Australia 
H: Fun
P: Thailand
H: Hot
P: Laos
H: SAIBADEEE (she said green but I've corrected her)
P: France
H: Civillised
P: Spain
H: Beautiful
P: Mauritania 
H: Desert
P: Azerbaijan 
H: Perfect
P: And finally... Georgia
H: Less perfect
P: Have you had any problems physically?
H: Yes. One of the big disappointments was that I thought I was going to get stronger and stronger and end up as superwoman but my poor 50 year old body is falling apart. We are both constantly recovering from insect bites, sore legs, sunburn. The list goes on.
P: Ummmm, where are you going on your next cycle trip?
H: I've got to cycle the pamir highway that we've missed out. I'll take a different bike.
P: What piece of kit do you wish you had?
H: Quite a lot really. Ha ha ha. All our kit's been fine. Our stove is a bit annoying because we haven't been able to buy methylated spirits so we can't cook, but although it's all been fine we're constantly meeting cycle tourists (often german) who have kit to die for and make me very jealous. I really wish I had a down jacket.
P: What piece of kit's really held its own?
H: My bike. It's been fantastic and I've had very few problems. Special congratulations to my chain and cassette. 20,000km without being replaced. Have we nearly finished, can I have a beer now?
P: Yes go on then
H: Okay I've got an answer about what's surprised you most.
P: Fire away
H: I've been most suprised by YOU. How you manage to remain cheerful all the time and what good company you've been, I wasn't really expecting that. You've definitely got your faults but we've had a lot of fun. Thanks Phoebs
P: That's the nicest thing you've said to me. Go on then, what do I do that annoys you?
H: I'm wavering between your slowness in the mornings, and your irritating behaviour about not wanting to drink alcohol as often as I do, and then drinking half of mine. Always.
P: That's all we've got time for this time! If anybody's got any questions they would like Harriet to answer then comment below or email me @ phoebetamsin@hotmail.co.uk. 
H: What's most irritating about me?
P: The way you always want to do the hard option, and enjoy suffering as much as possible when it's really unnecessary 
H: Yes I do. We're not on holiday.
P: Right okay we're wrapping this up.

Baku is brill, and we are ill.

13th May, Baku - Another botanical garden

After breakfast we built our bikes, enjoying the feeling of not being too hot. When that was done we went for a walk in the town. We spent an outrageous amount on proper coffee and had a look round the city. I was stunned at how FAB it was. We were staying in the walled old city which was very old and full of interesting buildings and pretty cobbled roads. The rest of the city was sophisticated, clean, well organised and modern. We walked down to the sea front and had a great view of the city laid out up the hill behind us. We then caught a cable car up to the flame towers which were super jazzy. 

After this we spent ages trying to follow the Lonely Planet’s directions to the botanic gardens and only finding miserable scrub land (we later discovered they’d all been replanted). Mum started feeling worse and worse and we made our way back to the hostel. We had planned to go out again immediately by bike but were both feeling wiped out so went to sleep instead. When we woke up we went out for street food. We had savoury wrap things filled with meat, spinach and cheese. These were insane. We went back for two more each because they were so delicious. Afterwards we thought we were having pancakes as a man was pouring liquid onto a hot plate. There were lots of strange looking things about this hot plate, and it turns out it was actually a cold plate, and he was making ice cream. We only realised this on about mouthful two and felt very stupid.. I’m not sure people who are tired all the time can get jet lag(?) but at this point we definitely needed some sleep.

May 14th, Baku - Some jazzy towers and a few showers. 

We woke up and Mum was feeling so rubbish that we decided to spend an extra day in Baku. She spent the morning in bed while I went to get new cycling shoes. I got the metro which was deeply enjoyable – a journey cost 7p and they piped in classical music to the carriages. Baku definitely does not have a European feel, or even an Asian feel. Russian is very widely spoken and it all seems quite soviet. For some reason they love the Russians. It seems a bit Stockholm syndrome esque that so many places seem to love the countries that take over, strip them of their natural resources and then ditch them but it’s really common – it explains why our british passports have such a worldwide positive reception. Anyway Baku all felt really foreign and exciting, and such a refreshing change from South East Asia.

After I’d bought shoes I went back and found Mum who was still feeling very miserable. She managed to muster enough energy to cycle along the seafront. There’s an 11.7km boulevard all along the Caspian sea, with a cycle path. This is also where they replanted the botanic gardens. There were so many people cycling along here and a massvie bike shed where you could pay $2 to hire a bike for an hour. Finding this was a real boon for us as they fixed some small issues with our bikes for free – saving us a trip to the bike shop the next day. We really wanted to see the jazzy flame towers at night so we waited for sunset. And waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually the sun set and the flame towers lit up. Soooooooo cool. They had all these great patterns, writing, the Azjerbaijan flag. It just went on and on. 

We also saw the Crystal Arena all lit up (the site of 2012 eurovision). After this we went out for dinner. We had chatupbairi which is effectively cheesy garlic bread, and this great soup with meatballs in. The food in Azerbaijan s so flavoursome and we very much enjoyed some different flavours after weeks and weeks of chilli in SE Asia.

May 15th, Baku to Probably still Baku - A new type of camping spot for us.

In the morning we finally managed to leave Baku. Mum was feeling better, but I was starting to feel ill. On our way out we decided we’d go via the immigration office to try and “register”, which you need to do if you want to stay for longer than 10 days, despite having a 30 day visa. We’ve read lots of stuff online that they don’t actually want you to register so you have to pay the $200 fine. We’d go along with that as the immigration office refused to register us. Cycling out of somewhere where 2 million people live is never a fun time, and Baku is no exception. It was made worse because Baku is at -28m below sea level, and most of Azjerbaijan is on a 400m plateau. This meant hills. We tried to dodge the main road as much as possible but soon ran out of side roads and ended up stuck on the M4. We stopped at a supermarket for lunch and were much amused by a tiny old lady who followed us around the shop. She made lots of suggestions about what we should be buying – sometimes even putting stuff in our basket on her own initiative! She got very stressed when we split up and grabbed my arm and dragged me back to mum, looking very pleased with herself. We tried to buy 2 tomatoes but she thought 3 was better and added another one. She was well below my shoulder height and very smiley. When we left the supermarket she came outside to help us put our shopping on our bikes, before suggesting that we had lunch there! She shepherded us through to the staffroom which was full of moody teenagers, got us both a cup of tea and some plates, and promptly cut up all our food. We learnt she was called Leila and had 5 grandchildren.

 Like many people in Azjerbaijan she had a golden smile (literally). When drinking tea in Azjerbaijan it’s the custom to take the sugar cube inbetween your teeth and drink the tea through the sugar cube. The number of cups of tea per day and therefore the number of cubes of sugar is a number that is upwardly open. After we said goodbye to Laila we set off again along the M4. This wasn’t really a fun time. The road was supposed to be a dual carriageway but there were roadworks so one side was closed and the road was doubly busy. There were a lot of roadworks machines that seemed to have literally no other function than blowing dust. I was really pretty bad by this stage and we decided to stop. We went to a building that looked like it could have potentially been a hotel, and found out it was a wedding reception venue! There were 6 men standing outside and they suggested that we camp there. We agreed, and were prompty taken into this tiny room for chai and dominos. Only one of them was an English speaker and he very much adopted us.

 Everyone in Azerbaijan seems to smoke the entire time, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing (driving a car, cattle herding, cooking, checking facebook, riding a horse) and Nesem was no exception. Being in a small room filled with smoke made me feel awful. It’s amazing how many parts of the world must have some sort of smoking ban because this is the first time this has happened. I thought dominos was luck but we both got absolutely rinsed by Nasem repeatedly. After this he cooked us supper using our food. He was very clingy and getting a bit annoying at this point. He kept making advances, on me to start with and then when I gave him the brush off he switched to mum. He cooked our pasta incredibly badly and used practically an entire bottle of oil on the vegetables. They were delish though. Anyway after this we had more tea and smoke and dominos before we went to sleep. The tent looked very funny in the venue.

May 16th, Probably Baku to the middle of the desert - A very surreal day by all accounts

In the morning I felt awful and clearly looked it, as Nasem was desperate that we should stay another day. He’d firmly switched to Mum by that point (it was probably my off putting red nose) and gave her a rose because she was so beautiful. I was actually quite jealous. We set off and suddenly were in desert. This was a bit unexpected but the barren land was familiar to us. Like the other deserts of this trip, the desert was completely empty, but unlike the others it was a bit cold and rainy.

 It was also very hilly and windy and progress was slow. After around 60km it gradually became greener until we were suddenly in gorgeous rolling green lush hills, with fields of wild flowers and orchards by the side of the road. We stopped in this crazy hotel called Qoboland, which was practically a theme park. It had a miniature London eye, plastic animals everywhere, a swimming pool, a lake, loads of stuff, and was completely empty (except us). The room was more expensive than we’d usually aim for but really really nice and I fell asleep for the next 15 hours.

Hot Springs to Luang Prabang - Asia is Over

May 7th - Hot Springs to Wildcamp - "Are we hidden here?'
We left the hot springs and immediately started climbing. This climb was 700m and lasted around 17km. The gradient was mostly quite nice and the views were spectacular but slightly obscured by the mist surrounding us. This felt very dramatic but was a bit gutting when we got to the top of the hill where there was a famous panoramic viewpoint, and all we could see was cloud.

We did use the hot water dispenser in the café to make coffee, and enjoyed hot coffee in the cooler altitude for the first time in Asia. After the top of the climb we reached a small town where we stopped for some noodle soup. We also spent about 10p on two delicious fresh juicy mangoes. Stopping at the side of the road to buy cheap fruit is something we've done often in Asia, but not frequently. This is because all the stalls selling one thing will be in one place. So we'll have 50km of nothing, and then 15 mango stalls next to eachother with their tables touching. 50km down the road we'll have 15 of pineapple stalls next to eachother with their tables touching. We'll think - oooooohh that's alright, there are obviously loads of pineapples/mangoes round here, which is probably true but there's only one place to buy them. Why this is I will never understand. Anyway after we lunch we set off and soon got to the only hotel for the next day. We decided to keep going to make some progress and quite liked the idea of wildcamping in the mountains. The road was up and down constantly going through small villages and sweeping round hairpins.

Soon it got to evening and we found a nice little platform with a gorgeous view of the mountains. This wasn't very hidden from the road but we decided that the traffic frequency, and the overwhelming friendliness of the people meant we weren't worried. We cooked pasta and ate looking over the mountains, before settling down to sleep. Whilst neither of us were worried, it was quite hard to sleep...

May 8th - Wildcamp to Xieng Igeun - The ride of my dreams.
We woke up nice and early and had breakfast before setting off again. We started the day with small climbs before descending to our lowest point for ages, before the long climb. On our descent we met Elisa (ngl I can't remember her name so I just made that one up), a German woman who'd been travelling on her trike for 17 months. She was older than Mum and had cycled most of the way from her house in Germany. We were asking her about her trike and she told us that she had had a stroke 4 years ago and lost mobility in her left side and couldn't ride on two wheels. As she said this I noticed that her left hand was paralysed. She said she liked the trike but found it quite scary being so low down - a couple of days ago she'd been hit by a lorry. I was staggered by how impressive she was. She was going over the same hills as us, on the same roads, carrying the same things, on a trike with a paralysed arm.

It was a shame we were going in different directions. The long climb was hard work because of the heat, but morale was high as it was our last climb in South East Asia! At the top we stopped for lunch which was disappointing as our bottle of methylated spirits had leaked over all the food making it uneatable. Oh well! We could practically smell Luang Prabang at this stage (except we could only smell meths). We spent the night in a tiny village 20km up the road from Luang Prabang, which had a gorgeous view over the hills and over the Mekong. We had some really nice food (although not enough as we were running out of money).

May 9th - Xieng Igeun to Luang Prabang - The Last Hill
We had a bit of a lie in in the morning and then set off to Luang Prabang. 1km in Mum's gear cable snapped, and by the time we fixed it the day was hot! This heat had a different feeling this time though, because it was the last cycling in the heat we were going to have to do! Luang Prabang is actually quite small which means it was nice to cycle in to. We immediately stopped by the river for iced coffee and pancakes. We'd met Monica in Vientiane who's an American woman travelling the world with her backpack (huge suitcase). She'd got to Luang Prabang and promptly started volunteering at a local school, and told us about the guesthouse her host family owned for just $15! We got there and they had never heard of her and it was not $15... They gave us a bit of a discount and it was very nice so we stayed there. We spent the afternoon cleaning our bikes for the first time in far too long, and sorting out our panniers. You do not want to know what we found at the bottom of these. Luang Prabang is a coooool city, full of nice street food and people selling fruit shakes and crepes. This is about as far from the rest of SE Asia as possible but a welcome change for us. For lunch we had an avocado and bacon baguette. I mean can you imagine the luxury. In the evening we had a vegetarian buffet which was clearly made for tourists and very bland and disappointing. The beer was good though. We climbed a hill to watch the sunset from the temple. This was beautiful.

May 10th - Luang Prabang - How many fruit shakes is it acceptable to have in one day?
In the morning we got up outrageously early to cycle to the nearby waterfalls. These waterfalls are incredibly hyped up and expectations were high. The cycle was 30km and actually really hard work, and then when we got there Mum had forgotten her purse so we couldn't pay the 20,000 kip entry fee, or buy breakfast. I was pretty annoyed but luckily we managed to persuade the people to let us in for "5 minutes" - mainly by not giving them a choice. Once we were in we made friends with some French people who gave us money for the entry, on condition that we give the money back to a Jewish charity in London. This meant we could stay for longer and had a swim in the waterfall pools. This came with a free foot spa as the fish went to town on all the dead skin on my feet. I can't believe people actually pay for that level of pain? It was very sad not being able to have an ice cream before the ride, and this also meant that paying for a lift home was out of the question. The ride home actually felt a lot easier though which was good news. For the past few days we'd had lots of stress because Bangkok airways were saying they wouldn't take both our bikes on one flight, so we were trying to change it so we did the first leg of our trip on different flights. All I'm saying is don't book budget air. Eventually we had to get Gramps the basecamp legend to sort it out from Cornwall.

We then went to the UXO museum about "The Secret War" in Laos. During the Vietnam war the Americans dropped bombs on neutral Laos, to stop the Vietnamese using Laos as a trade route. They dropped more bombs on Laos than were dropped in the whole of WW2, and a lot of them are still unexploded. Every day in Laos somebody is injured when they come into contact with one of these unexploded bombs, and mostly it's children trying to find scrap metal to sell. We watched a 20 minute video during which we both sobbed. It was shocking stuff. The link to part of the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGWA6M8pQ-M

 After this we packed up the bikes and had another equally disappointing vegetarian buffet. Luang Prabang is well arty, with fairy lights strung up everywhere and very tasteful buildings. It's a UNESCO World heritage city which means it's protected. We were very sad on our last evening in Asia.

May 11/12th - Luang Prabang to Bangkok, Frankfurt and finally Baku - Phoebe is an idiot and loses her passport again.
Our separate flights went smoothly and we met up again in Bangkok. Mum had had the better deal as she got to wait in the Bangkok Airways lounge in Luang Prabang. I tried to get into the one in Bangkok and they refused entry in a very humiliating way. Soon it was time for the flight to Frankfurt! I loved this plane journey. I watched Hidden Figures, La La Land and Girl on the Train (in French). Hidden Figures and La La Land were fab but Girl on the Train really doesn't work as a film #dontjudgeabookbyitsmovie. Anyway soon we were in Frankfurt! Soon after arriving in Frankfurt I realised that I'd left my passport on the plane. I mean really that is too much from me. After a stressful few hours they found it and we could continue to Baku. Arriving in Baku wasn't stress free as our visas were only valid the next day (in 3 hours time). The immigration staff acted like we were definitely criminals and took our passports before escorting us to a secure area waving their truncheons. Baku airport is PLUSH. I fell asleep but Mum didn't, and wasn't even allowed to go to the toilet! There was another man in the secure area who had been there for 6 days waiting for his visa! Soon we were set free and got a taxi to our hostel.

Vientiane to the Hot Springs - A long and boring tale of lost passports and then a happy tale of beautiful riding.

May 2nd to 3rd - Vientiane A near disaster and a lot of baguettes

We spent a long time in Vientiane preparing for Chinese visas at great expense, including booking fake flights, getting hotel reservations etc. This took a lot of time late into the evening and early the next morning. You can imagine how pleased we were when we arrived at the embassy and they told us that they weren’t issuing tourist visas until the 22^nd of May, for literally no reason. They shrugged when we asked why. This is late too late for us if I want to start med yr 4 (which I DEFINITELY do) which means no China. No China meant another flight. After very stressy time trying to decide where and when to go, we booked flights to Azjirberjan. The next morning we had our free pancakes for breakfast, packed ready to go, and then realised we (mum) had lost the folder we’d taken to apply for Chinese visas. At first we thought this only had our fake reservations in, and then we remembered our passports… Never mind! We optimistically decleared – they’ll be at the Chinese embassy. We went to the embassy and they had no idea what we were talking about. They said they’d check the video footage and we could come back later. Never mind! We optimistically declared – they’ll be at the café we stopped in on the way back to the hostel. The café hadn’t seen them. Never mind! We optimistically declared – they’ll be in our hostel room! Nope. Never mind! We slightly less optimistically declared, they’ll have been handed in to the immigration police. No. By this point we were getting pretty panicky.

skip very long upcoming boring detail bit if you like, we find them in the end. We looked into getting emergency travel documents as we thought maybe if we could get back on EU soil (love the EU <3 <3 <3 <3) then we could blag it back towards Britain, apply for new passports and get them sent out to somewhere. To get the EDT we needed two forms from two police stations. I set about getting these forms and mum went back to the Chinese embassy. The police stations were a complete joke. The first one I went into was simply an empty room with a fridge in. I hung round a bit and a man came along and just said “no”. I kept pushing and eventually he said “tomorrow 9 o’clock” and went back to playing on his phone.  I decided there was no way this could be the only police station in Vientiane and tried to find another. All I can say is the crime rate must be pretty low because the word in Lao for police is police but everyone looked very blank. Eventually I found a very fancy hotel and went up their elephant statue lined avenue to talk to them. The staff were practically falling over themselves to help me, obviously thinking I was a highly paying guest with a tripadvisor review in progress. They told me where the proper police station was and I went there. This looked a bit more legit from the outside, but I went in to the office and all the police officers were sitting around watching Laos X factor and playing candy crush. What’s more, there was a very small child who was obviously a permenant feature as she had a play area in the corner and a bed. Of all the jobs where it’s inappropriate to bring your baby to work, I’d think police officer would rank pretty highly? I got there at 4:05 but the police station closed at 4:30, and obviously they wouldn’t have time to help us in 25 minutes. (and the current contestant on X factor was pretty banging). I was told to come back at 9 AM. Mum had no luck at the Chinese embassy so we were both feeling very very negative.

The next few hours were probably the lowest of the whole trip so far. We were blaming ourselves for ruining everything and trying to come to terms with a flight back to London. We went out for street food and had food so spicy I got a nosebleed, but I felt like I deserved every drop of blood and all the burning on the back of my throat.

In the morning we went first to the British embassy to find out what our prospects were. The British embassy made me feel terrible, with a massive sign saying GREAT britain and northern island outside. It turns out we didn’t even get to see the ambassador. Mum and I reckoned he’d drunk too much gin in his wicker chair the night before. I read his blog online and it does seem he mostly organises parties. Laos citizens can’t apply for british visas unless they go to Thailand, and he obviously doesn’t help out British nationals in need, so his daily activities are a complete mystery. The Laos woman we spoke to was very very lovely but not nearly on it enough in terms of details. At one point she told us we could get new passports in Thailand in one day! But then it turns out she meant Visas. 

We were trying to skate over some details because an EDT can take you to 5 countries which would take us to EU Bulgaria (love u EU). Very late on in the discussions she told us an EDT can only take you to a country you live in – and you have to provide proof. This meant back to the UK for us (obvs). We resigned ourselves to making a trip back to London to get new passports and then flying back out but this was terrible.The timescale of things was also very very depressing – we had to wait 3 days for a police form (less if you bribe), 3 days for an EDT and 2 days for a Laos exit stamp (how a stamp can possibly take 2 days I will never know, maybe they need a lot of time to position it perfectly on the page, although the last time we exited Laos it took 2 seconds and looks like it’s been measured by a ruler – unbeatable). Basically we were looking at 9 more days in Vientiane, and then a flight to London. Things were getting worse and worse. The thought of flying to London, and then leaving, was also something I was finding it really hard to visualise. Who would we see? Would we go to Farnham? Would we stay with the Eleys? (yes)). We were losing the nicest cycling in Asia and around 2000km. We both tried to maintain resolve and set off to get the police forms in progress. We went back into the police office aka day care centre and during a suitable break in the TV programme they talked to us. With regular breaks to give the baby her bottle and check facebook (I’m seriously not joking) they took our report and gave us a certificate. We took the certificate to immigration police and they told us to come back on Monday, 4 days away. I managed to cry a bit and we offered some money, and they brought it forward to Friday. We made this appointment and went out for coffee and looked up flights to London. The coffee was Nescafé. This was bad. Really really bad. While we were looking up flights, Mum suddenly started crying. It turns out she’d had an email from the british embassy saying the Chinese embassy had found our passports!!!!!!!!!!!! Soon I was crying as well!!! Suddenly the metaphorical sky was blue (although I’ve had enough literal blue sky). We abandoned the Nescafé and went to pack up! At the start of this saga I really did think we'd find our passports, but by the end all hope was lost so the relief was HUGE. 

May 4th - Vientiane to Thangon A bumpy road has never felt so smooth.

We had to wait until it wasn’t so hot before we could leave Vientiane, and on the way we went to see the lovely French bakery who I’d been convinced was hoarding our passports and had been to visit multiple times to harass. The owner was very pleased for us (mainly pleased that the abuse would end) and we bought a celebratory baguette. We then went to the Chinese embassy who couldn’t have been less apologetic. Considering we’d been back several times to check if they had them, and they can’t find many passports belonging white british women – surely it must have been the office gossip? Who found the passports and didn’t do anything about it? Anyway by this stage I was feeling very angry towards China as a nation and felt very pleased we weren’t going there. We set off out of Vientiane north towards the mountains. On our way out we went past Patuaxy – a monument built by Laos to celebrate indepence from France, that looks exactly like the Arc de Triomphe. I’m not sure if somebody’s got an acute sense of irony or what, but it seemed like a strange decision to me.

We didn’t have much light left and decided to cycle as far as we could out of the city heading north towards Vang Vieng. The epicentre of Vientiane is really quite small but the subarbs went on and on and on. WE were doing this at rush hour and were regularly engulfed in swarms of motorbikes which was v scary but the feeling of being on the move again was unendingly joyful.

 Eventually we seemed to get out of the city and we decided to stop. We found a nice guesthouse (we deserved it) and ate… noodle soup! I live in fear of getting one with a foot in (they’re big on feet). This was a nice bowl though. It always comes with a plate of herbs and beans which we never know what to do with. Do we add it to the soup? 

After this we had an early night. It was so so nice going to sleep not inwardly punching ourselves and feeling like the trip was over.

May 5th - Thangon to Huay Moi Mum is an idiot

We left very early, but this was spoilt by Mum cycling 4 kilometres without realising she only had three panniers. I was speechless. How can you forget a pannier?? Her bike must have been so unbalanced? And you can see them when you’re riding?? Anyway I sat down and read while she went back for it. After her extra 8k we set off. We’d heard that the road was full of old country houses and women weaving at looms. (This is from Wayne and Kristina’s blog, an American couple who cycled from Singapore to China. The link is hrere. https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1mr&doc_id=853&v=1fZ They make us feel really good about ourselves). It turns out things have changed since 2005 as the road was full of new build houses which we think are probably resettled villages from the damns in the Mekong. It gradually became more and more undulating until it actually seemed quite hilly and hard work. At one point we stopped for ice cream and found a dutch medical student we’d friends with at the hostel.  Her minibus had stopped for a break. This was very funny! We kept cycling, stopped for lunch and had… noodle soup. We had hoped to make it to Vang Vieng but after 130km we decided to stop at a beautiful looking lake on the map called the blue lagoon. It turns out the lake had completely dried out which was astonishing as you could see how deep it is after the wet season. We stayed at a $3 guesthouse which wasn’t the nicest, and ate… noodle soup. Here's a picture of the lake in full bloom - it was completely empty for us. 

May 6th - Huay Moi to hot water springs. What it's all about

We set off very early and headed towards Vang Vieng. This was getting more and more hilly, but really really beautiful. I’ve stolen these pictures of the internet because ours are rubbish.

In Vang Vieng we went into a café for breakfast and found the dutch medical student there! We had massive pancakes and coffee to fuel us for the mountains ahead. Vang Vieng is very backpackery and famous for its whisky, you can buy a bottle for $1. We were planning to spend a day there but passport disaster meant we’d run out of time. It’s actually quite a nice place with these crazy karst formations everywhere and a beautiful river. We set off again, nervous of the hills ahead. We had worried about being too hot but instead it rained for ages before a thunderstorm hit. The booming thunder echoing round the mountains and lightning piercing the cloudy sky scared us a bit and we took shelter. When the gaps between the lightning and thunder started increasing we set off again and managed to do our climbing in a nice temperature. This riding was absolutely cracking. The mountains were breathtaking and so green and lush, such a contrast to the usual barren landscape you get at higher altitudes. We passed through tiny villages with lots of SAIBADEEEEEEs and lots of people practising their English. We got a  “good morning teacher”, and lots of “HOW ARE YOU I’M FINE”. We also did a lot of high fiving. We’d read about some hot water springs you could stay at and pushed on until we got there, with a lunch stop for Lao sausages. The springs were beautiful, it was cool enough that hot water was actually welcome and we were high up with a stunning view over the mountains. Honestly cycle touring doesn’t get much better than this. We had pad thai for supper and went to sleep breathing in the sulphur infused clean mountain air.

You'll all be pleased to know mum's lost this hat.

Ps. I hope I've changed the settings so anybody can comment. Nobody has for ages and I'm feeling needy. Love u all.