First Week

The First Week's from the Saddle Report

Packing the house in Bangkok, flying to Rome and climbing on the bike at the Fiumicino airport to Castiglione della Pescaia in Tuscany, and heading northeast to Venice, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Turkey, and the world, had made the week unusual. Adjusting to life on the road involved a long to-do list. Originally from the two ends of Europe, Finland, and Italy, why were we leaving from Bangkok? Let me reel back a bit.

When the sun slants across the main shopping street of Castiglione della Pescaia, the Corso, its cafes and bars fill up with the tourists This small Maremman resort town receives a herd that 10-folds its population during the hot summer days. Contrary to the bubbly summer evenings, the winter sweeps in a piercing wind from the Mediterranean and Paolo into his life of adventures, first to a small pizzaiolo counter in Copenhagen and then with a one-way ticket to Australia, with a stopover in Thailand. The second coupon did not get used. Loosing yourself in Bangkok was easy. Paolo got a job at L'Opera Restaurant, a grand old dame of Italian mainstays in the restaurant scene of the City of Angels. Soon, the old man of L'Opera, Rossano, and Paolo, cruised the newly tarmacked up to Issan, North Thailand, to catch a longtail boat across the slowly flowing Mekong to Vientiane with a new business adventure burning in their veins.

Around the same time, I settled in my house at the Mekong River in Vientiane's Sala Khunta, getting ready for the week's work at the United Nations. I met the dashing Italian rascal at the central fountain, Nam Phou, from where Vientiane's addresses radiated in four directions. We communicated through weekly game of darts and I invited him for dinner at kilometer 4. Something electric arose from that evening, a little bit of spice and sweet vanilla, which has carried us through now a 30-year marriage. It has held us together from Vientiane to Manila to Suva, Rome, Seoul, Phuket, Bangkok, and back to Manila. Southeast Asia has been the magical backdrop, where we raised a family, our daughter, Angelica.

Angelica grew up enveloped in a third culture story. She learned at the British and International schools. went to boarding school in the wake of the Fijian 2006 coup d'etat, got her finance education in the US, and went to work with a bucketful of work ethic and enthusiasm in the harsh climate of commodity trading. As the years rolled on, we built rich stories. Angelica grew into an independent woman with strong wants and ideas. She had gotten a share of our dream of round-the-world biking, madness, according to her. Travel should be pleasurable, she says, of the type where you can relax. My mother has an extreme definition of travel, which was how she introduced us to her Parisian friends.

The D-day found me in my Langsuan apartment, in the heart of Krungthep, immersed in daily work on the final day. A speech on energy transition and last words to the team. I was sad. Confused. I am the one who is leaving voluntarily a job that I had loved, and the team that has inspired me, supervisors, and the organization that has made me thrive, I asked them, why am I crying? Paolo had taken his flight a few days earlier, leaving his iconic L'Opera Restaurant in Manila behind. I glanced at the empty balcony across the vast living room normally filled with artifacts and thick carpets, a wooden bar, and a Rajasthan dining room table, to recall evenings overlooking Soi Tonson to the garden, where metallic blue-winged sparrows fly over the American Ambassador's residence. Then washed in the longing. Longing for the road, Desire for vagabond life, want of freedom We had made our decision. Whatever happens, we will embrace it, trouble or caramel-sweet life on the road.

30 July: Castiglione Della Pescaia to Firenze, Tuscany, Italy 165 km

Exhausted from all the packing and emotions of departing, resignation, and life-changing decision-making, I dozed off at B45, the gate designated for the Qatar flight to Rome and the one the crisply-suited Philippino had pointed me to at the lounge. The shrieking loudspeaker began to enter my foggy consciousness as it continued screaming a new gate number for someone ... and then .. my name, garbled in pronunciation. Who would know that it really was for me? I got up, looked around to not forget anything, which had become a bit of my style, and I ran. "Run Lady Run! You are the one who will miss the flight tonight!" the land-side staff in burgundy jackets yelled after me. With my lead-heavy riding boots, I clambered to the diametrically opposite end of the huge Hamad airport and got to the bay just when the last passengers got onto the bus. Whew! I had made it, I panted.

Over my shoulder, I had just a small backpack that would fit into the pannier of the bike. The entire household had been collected by the packers to a warehouse, including the very last bits: the bed and sheets, where I had slept last night, and the clothes I had worn to work the day before. I had sat on the bedroom floor waiting for the landlord to inspect the apartment. Just the pack back and a few passion fruits on the kitchen counter, which I gave to the maintenance lady, who also came to look at what the foreigner on the 8th floor was now up to. Everything was in order the landlord's accountant confirmed. Butterflies fluttered in my tummy as the taxi turned away from my sheltered, pretty little life on Langsuan onto Sarasin to Wireless and to the highway to round-the-world.

On arrival at Fiumicino airport, I did not find Paolo, my travel companion and husband, happy and welcoming. A quick kiss hello was too rushed. He was mad and probably embarrassed. I did not get to relay my story of almost missing the flight in Doha. He huffed and puffed and needed to get his story out first. He had gotten this new bike from Piacenza, where his brother Alessandro lives, managing his trucking company. Alessandro had gotten bitten by the motorbike bug, having to witness many of our trips here and there around the world. His riding style was different. Every rider has a variation of style. His involved short local trips with the very latest models. To be seen. For Paolo, the bike saddle needed an adjustment slightly higher for long-ride comfort and endurance.

Greeting the fratello farewell with kisses on the cheeks, he had ridden down South to Castiglione door-to-door in 3 hours and arrived at his mother's apartment for the night, with just one detour. Before saddling off for his first trip, he would need to make a reservation for our farewell dinner to be held in two nights from now in Tirli, under the chestnut trees.

The restaurant was the famed Il Baracchino. Paolo's now late brother Giuliano had always affectionately called it Sotto i Castagni to refer to the huge chestnut trees that towered over the rudimentary wooden tables. And so, it had always been Sotto i Castagni for everyone. Giuliano had been an influencer of sorts in his day. The food had always been phenomenal. Chianina, the unusually large breed of cow that free graces the hills of Tuscany, and Cinghiale, or wild boar, from the Tuscan tangled Macchiato forest, where it was grilled in-situ and consumed with the fresh spinach, juicy fennels, roasted charcoaled potatoes for best flavors. At Sotto i Castagni it was served with enormous free-pour carafes of Sangiovese wine. What's not to love? The fragrance of the pines and heavenly cuisine brought in the unpleasantness of tourists in busloads to Tuscany, but not to Sotto Castagne. There were no billboards along the Tuscan wine roads with its name. There was no internet page or Facebook with pig roasting on the pit boasting its reservation details. There was not even a phone number.

Paolo had made it to the tiny hill town, knowing the road well as his father's childhood home was right on the postmark-sized square of Tirli, but there was no one to respond to his banging of the green iron gate. The restaurant was closed. He had swung his leg over the saddle of the bike parked on the sloped gravel path to the joint and had circled back the curvy Tirli road to Castiglione. His Mamma had made Tortelli al Ragu, an irresistible fragrant Italian number one dish, and with that, he had slept well overnight. Deeply happy.

The next day, up early to fix the mocca coffee for himself and his Mamma with the excitement pinching in his gut. Two days and we'd be off. Off to the world, with a hundred thousand miles to ride. The bike was great. It seemed to anticipate every move and purred like a sweet little cat. He showered and went down to the bike. Three hours to the arrival of her flight. Plenty of time. Two and a half for the ride and a coffee on the road. He was going to be on time. The sun had warmed the saddle. He clutched the panniers on. She always commented on the lack of attention to detail in the pannier attachments as a German oversight, he smiled fondly. The bike was ready for the ride. Sweet.

But what? What ever? He pressed the red button again. The bike did not start. Nothing. No, yan, yan, yan.. not even an effort. Mah que? He searched his pockets for the key. Yes, he recalled discovering his error, the key would need to be in the vicinity of the ignition for it to recognize the signal. But he did not find the key in his name pockets of the brand new riding jacket. Scratching his white hair, had he 'lost' the key to the motorbike? How could this happen – and now! Accidentally, of course. Not my fault, he justified.

The day before at the restaurant up in the Tuscan hills, when leaving the green iron gate of the Sotto Castagne, did I not have it? I might have left it in the lock of the pannier. Checking again, sicuro it was not there now. He pressed the start button again like he had there at the gate. And then he had throttled off down the curvy rod with the wind in his hair. On his ride, he rewound, the miserable key in the pannier's lock must have fallen off, the only theory he could muster.

He pulled the reserve key out from the tank bag. The tiny, stunted plastic key was key chained to a branded BM pouch and had the electronic signal that works as a backup in serious situations. This was a serious situation. Two and half hours to the flight's arrival. He bent down to place the spare underneath the chassis at the back of the seat, sought with his fingers to find the sensor and at the same time, stretched his left arm to press the start button. Brumm…it was ok for now.

At A12, a window seat, at about the same time, when I received my wake-up espresso on the plane, Paolo's mind was clouded: How could he have been so oblivious? How can we get started now? Do we need to go back to Piacenza and get a new key? How long would that take? Ma cazzo, imagine that at the BMW, for a 30,000 Euro vehicle, they give you just one single key. Just like those you get for a BM car, with a button to pop out the key blade for the frigging panniers. But for a bike, they give you just one key, no extras, he muttered in his helmet. Could they not charge another 100 to give you a spare key – the bike is already extravagantly expensive, one more hundred would not have swayed the decision to buy. But no, no, no, and no! No extra key. He swore. What will she say, when she finds out?

😡 As Paolo shared his story, embarrassed, we rode up the newly widened road to Castiglione past Civitavecchia and looked over to the white cruise ships at its port. When we rolled down the pine-tree-lined two-laner and decided, over the intercom, to find the key, damn it! We turned inland from the roundabout at Castiglione that takes you to the Carrefour or to the the winding Toscan hill roads and to Tirli, where the restaurant was. We rode up and down the road, stopping here and there to kick the high grass, but only to find litter and old Coke cans. Suppose it might have fallen onto the pavement and bounced off to the shoulder, fallen under the leaves, or rolled down the steep side into the thick macchia forest, never to be seen again. Quite a cruiser this new key was! So, we were without the key to our vehicle at the very start of our round-the-world tour on a motorbike.

Now, the generous time we thought we had in Castiglione was actually tight. We rushed to the local BMW shop in Grosseto, the nearby bigger and proper town, to order a new key. The 6,000 Castiglionesi, or so, did all their business in Grosseto. Ugly and boring administrative town, the Castiglionesi thought, they took the Sita bus to file their taxes there, and walked from public office to another municipality, the court, and hospital, but quickly enough back in the breezy corso of their beach resort town.

As my jet lag crept in, my memory got hazier: the young salesman at the Grosseto BMW Motorrad joked how the BMW1250GS was a couch on wheels. We nodded and registered for the new key with 250 euros. Frankly, I remember thinking, I did not agree. He did not know what kind of test we were about to put the bike to. I thought I knew.

The new key would be made somewhere far in Germany, the young salesman grinned, incredulous as to whether it would ever arrive in the small town Grosseto. It would take several days, the grinning chap warned. And how would we ever get it. Fixed to hit the road on 1 August as planned, we needed help. Someone would need to pick it up when it arrives. The salesman agreed to text when the yellow courier envelope appeared in the mail. Then someone would also need to ship the key to where we might be by then. Talk about a moving target. I calculated that we should be able to make it to Istanbul. But until then, each time we'd start the bike it would come via the unsightly squatting ritual under the bike to find the sensor.

Numerous books have been written about what to pack and how to pack your bike for a round-the-world tour. The main message is to pack only a little. We got it that we needed to pack lightly. We had just moved from a full household that was now packed into 354 boxes in a warehouse to the bike's two side panniers.

But what really is packing lightly? The top bag was reserved for the administration. Bike repair kit. Safety kit. Adaptors and cables of all sorts, too many of them. Two computers (can't live without them) and passports. The top pannier filled up quickly. Each of us had one side pannier for our personal items, clothes really. I was the lucky one to get the bigger one but had to host Paolo's big shoes in mine. The light packing meant 2 polos, 2 collared shirts, one pair of pants, a dress, a scarf and a skirt, shoes, sneakers and sportswear, a sweater, and a toothpaste kit and undies. In other words, not much... and a book or two.

Under the scorching Tuscan global warming sun (read: hot), our frustration gauge flashed red each time we packed the bike even for a coffee stop. We began to select and pull out the 'unnecessaries'. Second pair of jeans, no need. Additional polos, no need. A cocktail dress and heels, a second computer, not needed? Oh no, not that! I cried. The Mac had been my best friend for years. We pressed the overflowing paniers shut and felt the weight of the bike heavy.

While struggling to bring the pannier weight down, our daughter, the little Angelica, who had been listening to us dream about a round-the-world bike trip since her first year, flew into Florence with her brand new boyfriend, a Frenchman from the movie business. Audiovisual special effects business, more correctly, with a lot of dreaming of being a pilot and flying off to the red moon-lit palm-fringed beaches in the South Pacific.

Angelica had grown up. She had gone through school, university, and graduate school and finally started working, in the States and later in Paris. That is an entire story of its own. She had become independent in a way that was scary. Now, we found her collecting her signature bags for the rental agitated, irritated, and annoyed to be with us in Castiglione. Unable to share our excitement and celebration of our departure with us. We will never find out why. Perhaps she was scared for us, as she said she was. Perhaps it was a weekend that we had disrupted her Pilates training plan. Who knows. But there was nothing especially I could do right. At the end of the few dark and stormy days in Paolo's hometown, the boyfriend, Lucas, took a drone movie of us leaving Castiglione and we were off.

The mercury hit 42C. Every time we got into the hot overflowing panniers it took us a sweaty half an hour to close them. That annoyed the millennials even more. Once we got to the Statale 223 to connect to the famous Chianti Road, this oppression faded. Angelica and Lucas followed us on the Chianti wine road for lunch. Finally, the wind was in our hair. The scenery flowed. Nothing else really mattered. And we were off. Ah, the beauty of motorcycling around the world!

We reached Trattoria Pasteci on the Chianti Road. It was the 1st of August. 2024. It should have been 2014 or 2004. It's been that long since the old National Geographic taupe world map has been pinned with a round-the-world route with carefully thought out transitions between the continents and islands, like Australia, and timings for the turns with the weather, eventually us falling into the couch in exhaustion to order a pizza before he weekend ends and the weekly routine starts. It was our D-day! Ours!

The lunch was good, but not great. Who comes to Italy in August? Everyone knows that the prices get elevated as the crowds thicken. Supply and demand. You certainly are bound to get less for your buck in August. Melanzane is just slightly more hard to peel; the olives are a bit less al dente, the pasta can, God Forbid, be even just a notch over to the overcook zone. Wine, oh the wine. Let's leave that alone. It's always perfect.

Angelica's irritation grew as we approached the Florence airport, where the rent-a-car's keys were returned to the yellow-vested African employee. Lucas, the boyfriend, soon disappeared through the sliding immigration doors to get back to Paris for work. In keeping with the plan, Angelica continued by train to Florence to spend a few more days with us, before we would take off onto the roads to the Balkans and the unknown.

The three of us settled in a homey two-bedroom AirB&B in Florence with a cast iron balcony overlooking the streets near il Duomo. Washed up for dinner, on the shaded streets downstairs, we could not avoid the crowds of selfie-snapping Chinese, French, Germans, and many more as we crossed the Arno to Santino, an age-old relic, famed for its aperitivo. A small boutique shop floor to ceiling covered with salamis, dried Parma ham legs, and cheeses. A girl with heavily extended eyelashes ported trays of glasses with happily bubbling Franciacorta to cheer the Tuscan summer night.

But the dark clouds clustered around us. Angelica was upset. I was upset. We were all upset. Nothing was right. In my heart, I longed for hugs of undying mother-daughter love. Instead, I ended up crying like a mad woman on the balcony of the AirB&B as she rebooked her ticket to leave as soon as she could punch in her credit card details to her computer and climb into an Uber to get as far away from me as possible, or at least to run after the boyfriend back home to Paris. It was a bad moment. A low. It was an ugly send-off. One that we don't write about in books. I was heartbroken. Paolo tried to comfort me, saying that everyone was at fault. But it was not enough. I felt ashamed as I had failed. I was heartbroken, hurt, and painfully sad. There goes my little baby girl. Hating me. Gone. My eyes swelled as I pulled the covers to avoid the cold stream from the aircon.

1 Aug: Firenze to Venice, Italy 1 August 350km

On the morning of day two, we selected some more luggage to post back to Mamma back in Castiglione. A brunch at an American-style Bistro at the Arno of stuffed bagels got us moving in silence.

We were eager to see this lovely, tourist-filled Italy behind us, and we packed and got going through the Futa Pass in Emilia Romana toward Venice, the sinking city of Marco Polo.

Circling and rounding the various highway connectors, the toll booth lady was finally going to find us. Her steely voice in the tollbooth loudspeaker was clear in that an honest wrong turn would not go free. That's what they always say. The conversation took time, but she was vindicated, and we breezed onto the Autostrada East and, before even noticing, ended up at the covered Marco Polo Parking, designated for motorbikes at the Piazzale di Roma in front of the painting-like Venice.

The bags weighed heavy, even if pruned to just the overnight essentials. It had gotten to a point, where there was literally nothing to wear for the day. Il Vaporetto picked us and our panniers up from the Piazzale di Roma to Giudecca, the Jewish island of Venice, where it would be easier to beat the August crowds. Comfortably sloughed in the Vaporetto's plastic seats, the magical sight of Venice engaged us in a conversation about the past. Marco was born here. He grew up here to his early teens with his mother and presumably his grandmother and cousins, while his father expanded their trading business in the East. Eventually, when Marco's mother passed, his father took him along to his expedition and this led to the incredible discoveries that he made for us to treasure to this day.

The Vaporetto stopped right next to our AirB&B Al Redentore. As always, life in Italy is a negotiation. There are always a lot of details in Italy. Our AirB&B had been reserved through the Booking.com. The caretaker pointed us to a dark spacious room down the steps, halfway underground. There was a large bathroom with his and hers sinks. Separate bedrooms, and a living room with a large TV. A window that let us observe the type of shoes that passerbyers sported. No. Our windows were supposed to be to the canal. Our view was to be open to the bright sunshine and to the Gondolas that plow laden with tourists, at least so it was in the photo that Booking.com had sent to us. So, what took place after Paolo saw the room was a lot of talking and explaining, some yelling and also swearing, and a bit of threatening (I looked away) but at the end of the process, we got our windows to the canal and it was stunning.

The house of Marco Polo is every biker's touchstone, a starting point on a Silk Road odyssey. This Marco, a kid from a wealthy trading family, opened the world for so many, millions. Marco is the iconic hero of adventure travel, even if many before him and loads after him traversed the Silk route, land, and sea. It was he who managed to have his adventures written out into an adorned biography, in jail in Genova. The family had spent a lot of time in Istanbul trading at its already world-famous markets. Marco was just 16 when he hid himself in a barrel determined to go with his Dad, and not at the hems of his many aunts at his Venice home next to the canale. He had heard the strange stories from his dad and wanted l to be on the next cross-Asia trip. That's how it all started for him and that's how it started for us too. From Marco Polo's childhood home.

A must in Venice is to get lost. Hopefully in comfortable shoes. We got lost on the way back from Marco's house. You really can get a workout in Venice as the small alleys just keep going on and on. The afternoon turned into a glowing evening, with a drop-dead gorgeous sunset. A welcomed refreshing trickle from the cloudless blue sky soon turned into a drenching rain and caught us running to our Vaporetto we finally spotted the lights of its pontoon deck appeared from behind a diagonally shaded pink palazzo.

Back at the safety of our Giudecca island, lights in front of a small pizzeria beaconed us wildly in the wind as I pulled my light sweater over my head and we quickened our step. Acqua Alta blasted over onto the sidewalk from the canal. A South Asian waiter nodded his perfected footballer's headbutt move to the small red door as he collected the last plastic chairs and folded the tables to stack them against the restaurant's windows. We passed a big signora in an apron that had once been white and pointed us to the dining sala and a table without looking up from her cash counting. In a second, the deepest carafe of red appeared on the table to accompany grissinis in a jar.

2 Aug: Venice, Italy to Zagreb, Croatia 374 km

Back to the parking at Piazzale di Roma in the morning – it is morning until noon when biking around the world. The bags were now more organized and felt a gram lighter. We had made one more trip to the post office just next to our Vaporetto. Another sweater and extra t-shirts left for their journey back to central Italy to Paolo's Mamma, as we rolled onto the highway to cruise to Trieste in the pleasant sun. Looking down at Trieste from the green meandering road up high above, we passed the historic border town and reached an uneventful border crossing to find a welcome sign to Slovenia. Everything happened in minutes. Beautiful green fields and peaks of leafy forest surrounded us. Everything seemed a bit Swiss across the border. A lunch stop emerged from behind one of the many picturesque bends, complete with red petunias brightly nodding to us from their baskets at the roadside terrace.

Back at the garden road, we melted the lunch of huge Llublianese Wienerschnitchels that were served with cheese, a kind of chicken Parmigiana with pork. In silence we had crossed into Croatia, not noticing the border. There were no border formalities at all. Not even show passport covers. The weather got a little hotter and by the time we rode into Zagreb, we were burning hot.

The Sundial Hotel turned out to be an attractive new-kid-on-the-block on around 20 minutes West of the city, with a Botanik Restaurant and Bar. It had a minimalist, but boastful nouveau riche air and new-age cool freshness. It instantly became our rest stop for the day.

Like everything else in Zagreb, its bar closed early, which required some due efficiency from a traveler. After alighting the bike from the luggage, we cruised into the city and found Tkalčićeva Street full of life.

"The best street in all of Croatia", our friendly waiter boasted proudly, when he poured the Black Queen beer or Medvedgrad Crna Kraljica to our mugs, sweet and full-bodied brown frothy broth. The crowd was calm and thin. Most had large beers in front of them. People towed big dogs and carts with kids in them. They did not smoke. Maybe it's forbidden. The evening enveloped us, and our fatigue caught up with us. Back at the bike, I felt something in the pit of my stomach: we still had a problem. On a bike trip like this, when you are out there on your own, you can never really know whether things work out or when they totally spiral out of control. Is there a guardian angel, who makes sure that things get sorted?

Motorbikers still present Iran as a problem. What to do with these foreign infidels that seem harmless on the surface, but could carry the seeds of evil? Most bikers hire tour companies, and most never make it inside the borders of this isolated axis of war. We had hired Hossein, an old hand who had been taking tourists in the '60s in hand-painted Volkswagen vans to smoke marijuana in the conjoined hills of Afghanistan and Iran. He had stayed with them in the mountains, where bonfires lit the camps of the guitar playing pot-heads feeling free. He is older now. 73 to be specific. With long white hair. Everyone who had tried to go to Iran or had gone to Iran by motorbike knew of him. We wish now that someone had told us.

Everyone also knows that you must bring cash Euros, not dollars, oh no, not to Iran. Credit cards would not work in Iran, the guidebooks say. Iran has become totally sequestered from the global financial system. Carrying Euros across Europe poses risks as these crisp plastic bills represent a real currency sought after by most. We had come from Asia from a 30-year life there and did not have fluffy bank accounts in Europe (or anywhere). Our challenge had become to withdraw as many Euros from the ATMs since arriving in Italy, another cheapo-styled act that extremely angered our little baby girl, as we would daily reach our limit at the ATMs.

When challenged with something on a trip like this, usually things get very messy. Stress seeps in and things get frantic. When trying to get these Euros, for some senility reason, I kept trying my old, expired ATM card. Well, to no one's surprise it, persistently, did not work. We returned to the Sundial in silence from our black beers, in a gradually growing panic. We will fix it, I kept repeating to myself, hoping not to alarm Paolo, who was always very concerned about not having sufficient cash around for unforeseen needs. Probably, I was to be blamed, given my stinginess with money. Well, to my defense, it was also true that it was not as easily spent if it stayed in the bank. We had spent our last Euros in for the fantastic local beer and throughout the 20-minute ride through the night back to Sundial, my head kept spinning the mantra: We will fix it.

As Paolo pulled into Sundial's parking, it dawned on me. Wow! I guess I had not activated the just-received ATM card. I got the key, ran up to the room without a word, found it, punched in the account numbers to my computer, activated the card and ran across the street, without looking left and right and left again, just finding, from the corner of my eye, Paolo standing at the bike and looking down at the back tire, in confusion. Pin - oh, yes. I had that. The usual. The only one I could ever remember. The machine made its scuffling sound of counting the bills. Yes, yes. I received a fresh stack of green bills from the slot of the machine. I grabbed them fast. I had seen movies, where if you don't catch your ATM money, it swallows the stack back.

I hollered at him, seeing him still at the bike with a weird look of concern, dashing him my widest smile. We hugged. Problem solved. We headed for a beer in the Botanik garden, which we mysteriously found open behind the Sundial Hotel.

3 Aug: Zagreb, Croatia to Principovac, Ilok, Croatia 338 km

Early in the morning, happily chatting with the breakfast room waiter who had noticed my RTW polo we had meticulously designed with a global map back in Bangkok, he interrupted us coming back from the bike. The back tire was totally flat now. Paolo dug the space-consuming emergency inflator kit out of the top bag. Well, it had been on my list of things to get rid of as one of the many little things that added weight and took space in the panniers. Now it was clear that this really is an essential piece, not one to be chucked out to make space for the high heels.

A Facebook algorithm led us to the best motorbike repair shop in town. It was actually near the Sundial, and we rode to Sascha's workshop with an empty back tire. We found Sascha's garage attached to his house and loaded with all sorts of junk from the floor to the ceiling. There, Sascha had 6 BMs and more KTMs waiting for their riders and some for buyers. He was very familiar with our problem and said that he could fix it in 15 minutes. I couldn't believe it and made it home in his office. He squatted behind the bike and rummaged the tire with his large hands and spotted a 5-centimeter screw. Then, he unfolded himself to his 2-meter height, smiled displaying his perfect white teeth, and told us how his wife had had three of them in her car tire just yesterday, looking at the screw like a diamond ring. Arnold S. watch out for Croatian competition!

Sasha loved Valentino Rossi No. 46 so much that his shirt was made to match his idol's. His radiant enthusiasm for bike riding was contagious. He had big plans, and by now he would have a new gleaming workshop, with all the junk that we saw then gone. While this storytelling was going on, I grew more worried about the puncture problem getting sorted. That was me.

Sacha pricked a hole through the space, where the screw had been with his index finger and enlarged it some, then dabbled some of the rubber-fix-the-bike tire glue and waited. Soon, he put his ear to the tire and nodded meaningfully. The puncture was sealed. We were good to go! Really? I confronted him in disbelief.

But it was fixed. It's like you read about these remedies in travel books or hear about them on Adventure Rider Radio, but to see them live is really amazing. I always listened to the ARR to get to sleep on stress-disturbed nights. The fixing glue was still there. The same rubber glue and it's still working. It melds into the tire and becomes part of the tire. Truly a great innovation. In 15 minutes, as Sacha had promised, we were outside his garage taking pictures, saying hello and goodbye to his wife and their pre-teen son, waving our good buys, and heading down the road.

Taking up Sacha's recommendation, with a well-functioning back tire underneath us, we took the Osijek turn and found agrarian roads through villages to Osijek. At the grand central square, we parked outside of a large church that looked very important, and that was flanked by a café, which was even more important to us. The young hipster waiter happily served us some cold beer. The Mercury had reached well above the mid-30s. The waiter found us so 'cool' to be touring the world on a bike and advised us not to miss Principovac if we loved wine. If only we loved wine? Oh well, we do. We so do. A lot. We adjusted the GPS.

#Principovak is a posh wine region with a huge estate in the middle of a beautiful, flowing scenery of vineyards trained in guyot (hey, we love wine) that can be admired from its curated restaurant. The rooms are modern suites. We managed to book a slot to play a game of tennis in the morning. So sporty of us, we frolicked, when making our way to the restaurant for an evening of a wine experience.

4 Aug: Principovak, Ilok, Croatia to Sofia, Bulgaria 510km

Still going from one ATM to another, we eventually got to the highway. Wow, it was hot! The mercury hit 40. There was a car in flames on the side of the road. The fire brigade gushed foam from their extinguishers, while the desperate driver poured a bucket of water over the flames from the ditch nearby.

We rode the whole day. After a long run from one gas station to another fuelling up, going to the bathrooms, and drinking bottles of water, dark green mountainsides appeared to us at dusk. Climbing the Vitosha mountain up to a lively and bubbling Vitosha town on the outskirts of Sofia, we became wishful for something great ahead of us. The #AllSeasonsHotel reception greeted us with a set of keys and a parking guidance note ready. Tired from the day's long and monotonous ride, we showered in the jazzy hotel, enjoying a full range of amenities, and soon appeared in our best on the street. Couples were making their way down the winding road to the restaurants, and we followed them to find a posh little restaurant next to a happily conversing couple.

We got quickly immersed in the conversation. Elena and Stefan had been born in Sofia in the sixties and had moved to the US for freedom and opportunities. They had lived almost 40 years in Virginia and had become first-generation Americans, with accents and ordinary jobs and ordinary lives, they revealed, with the typical problems of helping the kids find their tracks and jobs. One of the kids had children of their own. It sounded like a balanced and together family. At least everyone lived on the same continent. Elena and Stefan were vacationing in their childhood Sofia meeting with the greater family and buying their favorite spices to take back. I felt a slight something in my tummy, gulping down a load of kebabs and meatballs (Meshana Skara) and Guyvech stew and huge gulps of the delicious Villa Melnik. But then something stayed. Slight jealousy perhaps. Of having the family together under one roof, in the neighborhood, in the town, or just in the same State. Together.

Since the 2006 coup d'état in Fiji, our family has been spread across the world. Soon after the coup, the quality of the International School became punishingly absurd. Strange books, aligned with the Australian curriculum. Unsolvable science crafts. Hardly sufficient English-speaking teachers had long concerned the expat community with just half of the class graduating the IB exams, out of a class of 18. Angelica had left for a boarding school I Switzerland. Partly a part of a plot that I had designed for us to go on to the round-the-world trip then. Partly as a peaking lack of confidence on my part to successfully do my own job against the women-hating wrath of the Fijians, and to some part because the school had lost its footing. I have regretted that decision all my life since. Cried, and tortured me over the years, blaming myself for spoiling the family life we could have led; and making life nearly intolerable for the lone 10-year-old wonderful, smart, and adorable little woman she was and is.

5 Aug: Sofia, Bulgaria - Istanbul, Turkey 475 km

In Vitosha, the breakfast – my favorite moment of the day – was served at the hotel's restaurant, windows overlooking the winding road. Cars mingled up and down, hauling their passengers for treks. Many passed with walking sticks, fully geared in signature to take onto the trails. A hefty omelet and Banitsa, a Bulgarian breakfast, kind of a large flakey pie with spinach and cheese baked into its layers got us started for the day. Quick return to the room to pick up the helmets and the packed bags. Mine still needed a strenuous effort to pull the zipper. We packed the bike and left it on the square, in front of the hotel fully geared.

Vitosha boasts an important UNESCO Heritage site of Boyana Church from the 10th Century. We had to settle for a walk around this old rock Church since it opens to the public only in the evening. Peeking through the iron gate, we took photos from the outside but truly missed seeing its famous Byzantine wall paintings. Still in excursion mode, we switched the riding boots to sneakers in the rising sun of the morning, to follow others to the Vitosha Mountain, lured by the fragrance of its huge pines. A pine needle path through the trees took us to a forest. Soon realizing the time the treck would need and the effort it would take, we dialed back and thought about our clock ticking for the meeting we had committed to in Kirgiz with our group for the crossing of China. High grass reached up to our knees on the way down the slippery slope of the mountain hill to the parking lot. We climbed on board to feel the breeze now drenched with the heat and the climb.

On the road, the heat burned into our legs and the change from shorts to jeans had to happen. Europe was going through an unusual heatwave. In Bulgaria, it did not show any relief, the opposite. Wide open road gave way to us with the solar heat melting the tarmac as it beamed from the open blue sky. We rolled into Istanbul's traffic with 5 bottles of water each and a coffee ahead at each stop. Once getting onto the main road from a gas station ramp on a dead straight and wide-open road, a car passed us hair-close, shaking the bike in its air stream. We let out a sigh of relief seeing we were still upright. That was close. Passing this Bonzo, Paolo gave him a fierce look through his helmet that talks from a driver to driver of contempt and disgust. I just don't think the other guy noticed at all.

Riding into this 15 million city was easy and quick. We found the Seraglio Hotel ($110 per night with breakies) in the touristy part of the town. We had stayed at Seraglio around 10 years ago and had rented a motorbike to tour Western Turkey during one of our weeklong holidays. Unfortunately, the passing of years had done a number on the hotel, but the cute Turkish bath, complete with scrubs and salts, in the room still tickled us.

Once scrubbed off the dirt of the road, we headed to dinner. The old town, or Sultanahmed, gets really touristy, in the old-school way. Dining room managers hawk the pedestrians, red-cheeked from their earnest sunbathing, into their restaurants long before their restaurant. They accompany the tourists, incessantly explaining how great the prices they make available as a special just for you. This continues, while the colored lights and music fill the street and inviting signs and menu boards boasting ever big a steak ala Cafe de Paris at the doorstep of the many carpeted dining rooms that burst with color and cozy couches and throw pillows. You don't choose the restaurant? They will follow you long after you pass the joint, remarking what a terrible mistake you are making. Maybe next time, you tell them in the best way and hasten the pace. The subterfuge of soft rock and the Turkish Sauvignon Blanc make a nostalgic evening in the yesteryear's tourism ghetto.

6 August - Istanbul to Anant Lake in Bolu, Turkey (260km)

Call for the morning prayers got loudest on the Seraglio's rooftop breakfast terrace. Windows let out to the cupola of the Blue Mosque over red clay-tiled rooftops. Women watered their red pecunias on the balcony. I fetched more yogurt, dates, nuts, and fruits from the buffet, from time to time getting up to photograph the mesmerizing postcard scene and ordering more of the strong Turkish tea. I got my computer out and sat back in my cushioned rattan chair for a little glimpse at the news. Lively morning. Birds chirped. I had time.

Paolo had gone to chase our laundry. Last night, the huge plastic bag was left with the laundry lady around the corner before dinner. Or around a few corners. So, it would take him a while. I was in my running gear. The only thing that was reasonably clean. But Paolo returned sooner than I expected and got into his breakfast. The laundry would be done only by 11:30.

The morning sun rose strongly above the Blue Mosque. We descended to pack. Happy to leave this old and favorite room of ours, now in its decline. We wanted to hold on to the happy memories there.

The bike was parked in the shade under the hotel's canopy on the cobbled street behind a fruit lorry on the descent. A steep angle of the street made packing awkward and scary. Hold steady, I instructed with my serious tone, as I climbed over the bike. We bounced down the bumpy descent, passing the yellow and orange buildings, to the Ankara-bound highway and were in a complicated web of tunnels in an eyeblink to dive into the Tunnel on Kennedy Kadasi toward Anant Lake and Ankara. We emerged in the countryside from underground. The ride was easy and hot again on a straight-line two-laner. The temperature gauge hovered at 39 degrees Celsius. Fueled by coffee and water at gas stations - we spent another hour and a half on the road and rewound the clock back to our many earlier stays in 'Tanbul.

Angelica, during her history buff period, on one of these trips, marched fully scarves from one Mosque to another, with a pensive expression and a mainstream guidebook open in her hands. Sitting down at a corner of the magnanimous atrium of the Blue Mosque, mesmerized by the space, its awe, and the softness of the embroidered carpet, she tried to understand how the prayer tradition works and why the women are segregated into a separate prayer room, and the meaning of the prayer. It was a challenge to explain the gulf of difference between today's Christians and Muslims experience in their lives. We reached our roadside hotel on the Anant Lake.

More a country guesthouse, the Anat Lake Hitit Motel is a friendly hotel with a resort feel, with earthy but modern rooms. Each one is built with a fireplace for the cold nights. Firewood cozily loaded next to the pit, the wooden floors creaked underfoot. The Japanese-modeled shower and bathroom added their own mystery. The reception man told us that we might need to light the fire tonight as it would get cold. Really? It was hard to imagine, as I tried to heal the peeling sunburn in my legs and arms from the heat of the ride. We got him to go out and pick up two Effeses beers since the hotel would not serve them. Jolly good chap! He cranked his moped to life and went leaving a buff of black smoke behind him.

Turkey is officially a secular country, but outside of the city lights, the Moslem influences become visible. Heavily wailed women. Solemn coffee rooms filled with bearded men sitting and sipping tea and smoking shisha pipes. We brought the two large beers in secret to the restaurant at the spring-side and had them with our meal of lamb and beef with huge juicy tomatoes and yogurts of five types. I tried to get into my computer again but the beauty of the fresh spring bubbling in delight next to me distracted me and we ended up immersed in the life of the upstream swimming the little fish and frogs jumping over from the small, rounded rocks. This was our rest day. After the late lunch, buzzed by the large beers, we crawled into the cozy bed in the cute country room and crashed.

Day 7: 7 Aug - Anant Lake, Bolu to Cappadocia, Turkey (495 km)

I got up at sunrise to take a call from work. This would happen once a week for a month.

Part of my resignation had been an agreement to monitor the team I had left to ensure its operations everything continued uninterrupted. It was an honorable thing to do, even if annoying. Meanwhile, Paolo wrote menus. I probably should not have accepted to do it but everything changed so quickly. But I knew that I was hanging on to the past that did not exist anymore. It was not nice. It disrupted the flow of the road with too much reality. Work had slowly made its way to my head. It had been,l spreading itself onto spoil the mountaintop views. It was setting a filter between me and the wailed women carrying baskets of enormous capsicums, the pipe-lipped white-bearded wrinkled men hanging outside of the coffee houses, the cupolas rooftops of the steam saunas, pink-walled Mosques, disrupted my decipherings of the words that were supposed to have something in common with my native language, Finnish. The call was ok, as they always were. But like all of the thousands of work calls before that, it was not life-changing. It didn't change anything.

Soon after, we made it down to the pretty stream for breakfast. It had been brilliantly spread out with some 15 little plates that the waiter kept loading onto the table in front of us from these filled-up trays. He served Turkish tea, Nescafe, and finally, came the turn of the Turkish Coffee. It was served in silence, carefully, allowing us to observe its thick, dark flow from the copper coffee pot. We had olives in several forms, pancakes with strawberries, pastries filled with cheese, and eggs in two forms, salads with massive steak tomatoes, beautifully grilled with cheese sliced into their middle, and a plate of string cheese. I am sure I am not even catching it all here. But the picture is more than a thousand words. Right?

The waiter chatted us more than his welcome, telling us about the various nationalities that had been staying at the hotel. This nationality was dirtier than this other one; he also relayed that a retiree like him receives $250 a month as a pension, not enough to keep you alive. He had just a month ago driven his wife from Azerbaijan in his own taxi. There life was better and cheaper.

This perked our interest. A bit surprised as the land border was reportedly closed for all, except for truckers, and especially for bikers. What might he had seen at the border? He became confused, meaning what? What did the foreigners want to know? Nothing much. Ordinary. Suspecting that he had just been hitting us for a tip, he got it. We also fell into a silent moment in the room to feverishly check on the border crossing in the the internet. What's going on – can we actually get across to Azeri land from Turkey?

By noon we were saddled up and on the road again, swerving among the traffic. Opting for the the straight-line broad highway, instead of the usual country road that wound around the mountains, to save a bit of time. With the meeting date of 11 September approaching, we would make it to Kirgiz on time, by my calculations, but we were on the clock.

We took gas only once, the ride was not long and our extended tank held 350km of fuel, which made the bike look like an enormous beast with its bulging shoulders pushing forward like a mad bull.

At this gas station, the cashier charged me for someone else's gas. Was this a normal treatment of the foreigners? While our tank was big, it was not that big. Since I noticed it and asked them to correct it, a big commotion broke out. Judging from the gestures and expressions, it was who annoyed the small crowd of gas buyers that gathered to resolve the problem. At somepoint, a large man with a black sports jacket walked over to me, all gallant and commanding from his two-cabin truck. He spoke in English and told me that the mistake would be corrected. It was a simple mix-up of the pump numbers. (Yeah, to his advantage.). Once I had the correct credit card slip in my pocket, he walked out with me to explain the situatin to Paolo, obviously it would be better talk man to man. Oh well. Intentional or not, we were back on the road with gas, and a lesson richer. I learned to keep your eyes open and congratulated myself in silence for having checked.

We stopped near Ankara at Optimum Mall and found a Columbia clothing store on the third floor, where we got my Iranian pants. I had been searching for baggy black pants that did not attract any attention while riding there. The ride was hot, and the terrain changed to an irrigated desert. There was agriculture everywhere and we passed a couple of lakes. That would give a convenient source of water for working the land. At some point really my leg was scorching. I kept thinking back to Bangkok and how the Thai ladies always rode in skirts. Now, pants felt too hot, in shorts you burned. I tried on my Iran pants. Light, in the Colombian way, prevented the burning.

Finally, the road to the town of Nefsehir led to the cave sites of Cappadocia, and without any trouble, we found our #SplendidCaveHotel through the cobbled streets by just following the signs. They were serious about informing their clients of their whereabouts. The friendly reception man offered us a choice of rooms that we went to see one after another walking up and down his stone steps, throwing astonished glances at the view from the hotel to the cave ruins that spread out from all the rooms to a brown cave gorge. Each room had a cozy Turkish harem feel, colorful with aquamarine and yellow cushions everywhere. The rooms were furnished differently and had very different temperatures; some had a cooling breeze and some were sauna hot. The friendly receptionist had a strategy and it worked: We chose an upgrade to a suite. The thing that made it perfect was the run-up to the reception and a return with a chilled white for the afternoon sundowner.

We took the two rattan seats covered with colorful blankets to the porch of our suite, opened the Sauvignon Blanc, and mediated on the depth of history, and colors of the evening-orange tuff caves, where we imagined the cave people going about their lives with their hemp-haired kids a few millennia ago.

This ends the first week. It was a lot for us. We had a lot to get used to. Life was different now. It finally felt like we were alive. Living the life on the road. It was not all comfortable: disturbing thoughts of the real world, work and a child left behind in the heart of Europe, alone and angry at her parted parents, worried us. Where were we going? Why did we do this? Why was it so immersing and calling but also so superficial and vein to live on the road?

Our second week kicked off sooner than we were ready for it: with a shock!