Almost Madness

Outside the front of the place there is an old bus. The door is open and I go and sit down for a cold drink. Blue eyes comes in and sits across from me. This is one of those times where the world goes quiet. Where there are only you and him. You can focus on nothing but his face.

He starts talking. I don’t understand most of it and he had a very croaky voice. I suspect from what he says he has throat cancer. He’s got some gold teeth and I ask him about them. Turns out he was a boxer. I can see it in his nose. You’re so fixated on the eyes you don’t notice much else. I look at his hands. He gabs my hand and he pulls, hard. I pull hard back. He starts to smile. We’re there both pulling against each other, smiling, minds meeting. It’s a rare spell and it’s soon broken by oily chimp coming on and saying the radiator is done. I make bubble noises to ask if he tested it and he just laughs and smiles too. “You think I’m an amateur?”. I dunno mate. I’ll find out later😁


The driver takes me back to the bike stop. I ask if I can stay a couple of nights. He says stay as long as you like, then buggers off and leaves me all alone in the building.

This would never work in 🇬🇧. There are tools here. There is a kitchen with a fridge and cooker. Washing machines. And a shit load of “hot beds”. Choose one and hope the last occupant didn’t have anything nasty. I’m past caring. Way way past.

 

I start putting the bike back together but I don’t start it and test it. If I tell myself it will be ok I might sleep tonight. If it’s still fucked I don’t want to know until tomorrow.

Through the evening a few other souls roll in to stay. A father and daughter. A couple of bloke on big Harleyesque bikes. They’re friendly too. Maybe it’s just a biker thing. Fingers crossed tomorrow is less stressful day. I could do with one😁

 
A very fitful sleep in a grubby bed. There are other souls somewhere in the dark that I can hear. I’m wondering if they are all in the present, or if some are in the past. Speaking from the walls.

In the middle of the night I hear banging. Proper HARD banging on the front door. It’s a big fuck off metal contraption and they won’t get through it but they’re having a proper go at it. I suspect they are some bikers turned up very late and want to stay but there is no way I’m getting up and opening it. Nobody else seems to care and after a while I think whoever is banging’s hands turn to pulp and they have to stop. I’ll check for blood in the morning. As long as it’s on the outside of the building and not the inside I’m happy.

It’s Sunday and I’m going to stay here until tomorrow then ride directly to the freighters and try to start the return process. It feels like a cop out. A failure. A bust. A missed adventure. My latest plan was to go into Mongolia and loop back into Russia and home but with only a thin slab of glue applied by an oily mechanic holding back a potentially head-fucking disaster I don’t want to push my luck any further. I could ride back the way I came but in truth it adds 3500 miles of radiator risk and absolutely no pleasure. I’ve ridden it twice now and I’ve no need to do it again. The first time in 2018 was great but now it’s a thundering tube of metal and madness. It’s changed, and not for the better.

I will always have the urge to get to almost madness. Always. And I have a plan for that, but not alone. So if you want to run the Russian gauntlet then you know who to call👍👍

Anyway look at me. I’m level with the middle of China😳. The circumference of the word at this latitude is about 24.000km and I’m about 10,000 km from home. I’m about 40% the way round😳😳. Now is not the time for fucking about.

I finish putting the bike back together, start it up and prepare for the almost inevitable disappointment that is about to unfold. I leave it running and go to read my book. I do want to check. I don’t want to check. I want to check now. I’ll check in a minute. It’s like waiting for a baby to be born, or for the ball to stop on the roulette wheel.

I go to check. No water. I rev it a bit and wait. The fans come in. I turn it off to heat sync and leave it. No water. That’s a result. But experience has taught me not to count any chickens before they are hatched, roasted and sitting on a plate in front of me with roast potatoes and gravy. That’s my anxiety lowered for the next 5 minutes at least though.

So I walk down to the centre of town to get a haircut and shave. It’s Sunday, it will be closed, but no. Many pretty ladies in red uniforms are poised to cut what’s left of my hair. “английский” (English) .. errrr, one pretty lady is now poised to cut my hair. She has shave grades but hers are a like a set of kids stacking cups where 30% of them have gone missing. I pick the shortest. I think it removes the first layer of skin too.

Fuck knows what’s falling in my lap. That’s not my hair. Someone is standing behind her throwing hair from an 80 year old in my lap. FUUUUUCK…this shit. That’s not me. That’s not the adolescent soul ratting around inside my head. There can’t be a God surely. What god would slowly torture you, bend you over, loosen your skin, degrade all your senses and reduce your world to a point where you’re incapable of anything but breathing, whilst leaving your brain as though you were twenty. Who would worship a God like that?

 

Hair (singular) done. Now the shave. She won’t wet shave me which is a shame, but she is willing to run over my face with an electric razor. The result … is shit. I hope she does a better job on her lady garden otherwise sex for her husband will be like being pulled naked through a newly harvested corn field by a Lamborghini tractor driven by The Stig. Still, if I need any sandpaper to use on my radiator I can now use my chin👍

I’m getting some coffee from the supermarket for the bike stop. Something to contribute at least. There is a little old lady in front of me. She has 5 cheap shit pot noodles I assume are for her and a load of quality cat food that I assume isn’t. Her bloody cat is eating better than she is. So I pay ahead. Never done it before, but why not. She smiles. That’s enough.

I was going to take the bike for a test ride but I’ve chickened out. It’s stupid hot and I don’t want to do a mile more than necessary. My mind is going to be totally occupied by that bloody bike all the way (hopefully) home.

So now I’m sitting round a table with a load of Russians consuming vast amounts of alcohol and eating from various plates they’ve put together. It’s a nice place to be. A comfortable place. A happy place. Same people. Same pleasures. Different language. I show some of the bikers the radiator fix. They say if it had happened earlier in a big city I could have had it welded properly, but shit and happens never organise their jolly japes in that way. As long as it gets me home, I have absolutely no fucks to give.

 
I will always have the urge to get to almost madness. Always. And I have a plan for that, but not alone. So if you want to run the Russian gauntlet then you know who to call👍👍

I want to come with you.
I don’t want to come with you.
I want to come with you.
I don’t want to come with you.
On repeat forever.
 
I will always have the urge to get to almost madness. Always. And I have a plan for that, but not alone. So if you want to run the Russian gauntlet then you know who to call👍👍

I want to come with you.
I don’t want to come with you.
I want to come with you.
I don’t want to come with you.
On repeat forever.
Then do.. don’t… do… don’t.. do..
 
“Remember the first rule I told you?”
“I must not count any chickens”
“Right. Never ever ever count your chickens. You know what happens if you count the chickens don’t you”
“There are 10 chickens”
“YOU COUNTED THE FUCKING CHICKENS? WHAT THE FUCK YOU STUPID SNIVELLING SACK OF SPUNKY PUSS. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU COUNT THE CHICKENS?”
“I like counting chickens. I’m a chicken counter”
“YOU UTTER UTTER TWAT”
“.. and clouds.. I like counting clouds too”
“CUUUUUNT. WELL THERE IS GOING TO BE PLENTY OF TIME FOR THAT NOW YOU PITIFUL PILE OF PUBIC EXCREMENT”

And I’d thought i had maybe bought myself a little luck this morning too😞

I was just about to abandon the dribbling drunken giggling Russians and head for bed last night when there is a sound of angry metal bees outside the gate. “Don’t open the gate” I cried but it was too late. A drunk Russian tripped and fell into the gate and open it went. Then through the gates came the Mongolian Horde. Ripping up the air and spraying benzine perfume everywhere. Nine bikes and 4 cars full of an assortment of men, women and children. Out they all came and into the building. Claiming beds and couches, getting big boxes of food out and cooking up clouds of smoke.


Mongolians. I think poor. I think yurts and desert. I think hunting on horseback and wrestling covered in fat. I think playing football with a dead sheep. I don’t think of them riding Harley Davidsons and modern Honda motorcycles. I don’t think of them as having cars even, yet here they are. One of them says hello in perfect English. He and his wife were educated in Wales and both speak English as well as most Englishmen😳. Their chaos is going to take a few hours to subside so I just stick some ear plugs in and go back to plan A.. sleep.

 
I’m up early because I plan to get to the freighters ASAP. Maybe they can get the bike on a train today. While I do want ti leave, I’m also quite uncomfortable about leaving this temporary place of sanctuary. Going back out on my own into the scary Russian wilderness with a patched up radiator.

I’m wandering about making excuses that delay my departure. I’m looking at one of the riders’s Africa Twin. His back tyre is toast and he’s only just started his trip😳. My tyres are the same size.

Lady Luck is a busy lady. She cannot be everywhere at once and occasionally she can do with a hand. So i hand the Africa Twin rider my spare tyres. They should get him round his trip. And hopefully Lady Luck will get to hear and do me a favour in return one day.


But not today.
 
I say my goodbyes, ride through the gate and head 50 miles back towards Irkutsk. I’m desperately trying not to look at my boots. I want to look. I don’t look. “Doooooont loooook”.. “ok, I won’t look”. “You want to look don’t you? do you want me to look for you😁” “Nope. I’m not going to look.”

I look. And it’s all dry. But I’ve only been 50m.

I’m approaching the area where the freight company is. It’s got to be wrong. It’s in some sort of ghetto. Down a long rough dirt track, then another, turn right.. well this is nice. There are, of course, new and shiny freight forwarding facilities in Russia. Someone at the bike post suggested one, but I thought I’d use the one my Russian mate had used in the past. Why in God’s fucking name do continuously make the wrong decision. WHHHYYYYY. You could give me one choice. Just ONE. And i would STILL make the wrong FUCKING decision.


I go in. See a lady behind a screen. Tell her I want to freight my motorcycle to Moscow. “First go to green shed and come back here”. Ooooo k then. The green shed is round the back. A warehouse amongst old railway carriages and there is a tired, clapped out crane loading one lump of coal at a time into some train wagons, belching out thick black smoke and threatening to explode. It’s like a film set from some terrible depressing dystopian future


A little bloke comes out and motions me to ride round the side and up the ramp, into the damp darkness. The Bitch is nervous. She doesn’t want to go. She’s whinnying and stamping her feet. She is growling her displeasure. She’ll be fine. It’s the poor bastards that have to share the journey with her I’m sorry for.

 
I drain the fuel. Remove the screen. Tape the helmet to the bike. Little bloke takes weights and measurements. Gives me a form. And I go to the office. That was easy. Too easy. Go to the woman at the glass. Hand her my form. Answer a few questions . Pay about £450 and she hands me a slip of paper. Done.


I’m feeling something is wrong. I can hear chuckles behind me. I can feel a shitstorm rushing towards me. “How long?” I ask. I feel shit and happens both grab an ankle each. “About two weeks”😳😳. My legs go from under me and I feel them being pulled apart. They drag me to a post and twat my bollocks so fucking hard I feel like I’ve got 3 Adam’s apples. Two weeks! Two fucking bloody sodding what the fuck am I going to do for two shitting bloody wanking weeks🤬🤬🤬. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

WELL THAT HAS WELL AND TRULY DROPPED A BIG WARM CURLY TURD RIGHT INTO MY PORRIDGE😞😡

Two weeks without the bike. That’s a prison sentence. I’m going to have to tread very carefully with my cash and maybe beg my Russian mate if I can sit in his outside toilet…

I feel very heavy. Weighed down by having shit and happen and all their extended family from around the world on my back. The lady orders me a taxi. Maybe I should order a black one with a box in the back. But I get a small Peugeot instead. No room to lay a lanky streak of piss like me to rest in there so I better just get on with it.

I’ll stay by the station. Always the best area in town. Go to the first cheap hotel. “Niet. Russian passports only”. Trudge round the corner in the heat in my leathers. Speak to the Russian sulking champion 5 years running, get a cheap cell next to the road. A tram just went past and the rumble went through the room.

Let the purgatory begin.

 
You might want to put a note in your diary at this point to return to this nonsense in a couple of weeks when I’m hopefully reunited with my Bitch and I’m riding her into the sunset. Until then you’re likely to get very bored by the musings of an old bald bloke sitting on a random bed with only a keyboard for company. You have been warned..

You know that famous picture of astronaut Bruce McCandless II floating completely untethered with the earth below and the infinity of space around him? Only a backpack to get him back? Well that’s what I feel like right now😳. I know that’s being overdramatic but that’s the mood I’m in today. “Today Mathew! I’m going to be a drama queen”. I have money. I have a very helpful and kind Russian mate that gave me a life saving Russian sim with a phone number and data, and I have my life experience. I hope that’s enough. Fuck I could always just go and grab a policeman and scream help I suppose and jump onto a long and complicated officially assisted road out but I’d rather try and go manual.

I went to the station this morning to buy a train ticket. Plan is to move slowly along the trans Siberian back to Moscow over the next 10 days or so, stopping off for changes of scenery more than anything. I’m not a culture vulture. I can see as much as I need to see of a cathedral in approximately 20 seconds. I just need distractions.

I went to the ticket office. Pressed a button to get a ticket to wait, put it in my book, and waited. Number came up, went to kiosk, ticket was gone. Apparently all it took was 10 minutes for me to turn into a magician😞. I fanned and fanned the book. No ticket came out. Back to the machine, get another ticket, back in the book but with the top sticking out. Wait … Number comes up, go to the kiosk, fan the pages, 2 tickets fall out. No. I’m not making this up🤬

 
I’ve got to go and change some more money. There is a Siberia bank across town, that’s who I used before. Time for a walk, and a coffee.

Google says there is a coffee place in big derelict building with a spanky Maybach SUV parked outside. Walk in and there is a freshly polished and buffed Russian princess posing at the end table. Looking like a business woman but judging on the two other business women that enter after and usher her out the back, then I’m wondering what business they are actually in. Does anyone have a fetish to be pointed at accusingly with a pen by a dark bird with slim bronze legs and a pencil skirt? Or am I the first? Forget I said that.

 

Anyway she serves to distract me from the price of the coffee and the fact the building I’m sat in could collapse at any moment.

So let’s find the bank. It’s round here somewhere. It’s… shut. Not shut as in “open again tomorrow at 2”, shut as in “we’ve removed all the signage and furniture and fucked off” shut. Why am I not surprised. Find another bank. There are surprisingly few. Walk up, open the door, there is a bloke on a ladder working right in the way. There is absolutely no fucking way I am getting within touching distance of any bloody ladders. I’ll try again in the morning. Let’s just go walk about amongst the roaming Russians.

 
I get a text. It’s a weather warning and I can see it approaching so I head back. Walking across the bridge the wind is howling and throwing so much dust I can bearly open my eyes. It feels like it’s trying to rip the bag with my passport right out my hands. It’s all bollocks of course. It’s just my under stimulated mind getting on its exercise bike and blurring the pedals in a fit of pique. I do sometimes wonder what being on the spectrum must be like. Fuck, my brain feels ready to explode half the time.

 
Tomorrow I start moving back west towards the uk. Hopefully it will start to take some of the tension out of the extreme pull I’m feeling towards home.

I know all this bollocks sounds like the moaning and of complaining of a petulant, privileged, selfish c@nt. Which it is. My currently installed personality is exactly that. I know it. I confess to you and through that I absolve myself. But I’m still a c@nt, same as any other. The exact same person before entering the confessional as the one leaving the booth.

I do receive regular treatment though. The other day when I left Baikal I stopped in a small petrol station when my foot got too hot to carry on. I was just sitting there. A spoiled brat. Someone who doesn’t know how lucky they are. There was a petrol pump attendant sitting next to me. A youngish man of obviously limited intellect. I asked him if there was a hose I could use to cool down the bike. We wandered round the back of the petrol station amongst the rubbish and we came to a small hut thing. It looked like a converted unit of the back of a small truck. The door was open and I could see that inside was a bed. The room was absolutely filthy. Deep in grime and absolutely unfit for human habitation. I asked him if he lived there. He looked at me, shook his hands and said he ate in there. But there was definitely more too it. I rode on to the bike stop. And he will still be there.

And it does make me think. Honestly it does but my fucking brain is always in such a rush and so busy arguing with itself it quickly forgets. In my more lucid moments I do think about luck. Luck and good fortune can take you amazing places and to incredible highs, but luck can also stop you from falling back into massive shit and a life of misery. As long as I’m feeling ok and I have the means to get home, however convoluted that journey is, then I know I’m a lucky man.

Until my brain finds its next rabbit hole to run down😳

I was woken in the night by someone announcing Australian traffic reports over the radio with Lady Gaga singing in the background. In my head. What the actual fuck is wrong with me. I’m beginning to think I should not be left alone, especially by soapy short shaven shower maidens with long nails and rough loofahs…. Here we go again.

So I leave my most precious and irreplaceable travel essentials safely locked behind a very worn 50p door handle at a cheap hotel in area full of transient people and go to get some money changed.

Get to another bank. Walk in and it’s like Britain's Got Talent. There are 4 desks with 4 people staring at me. It’s empty but they still make me take a ticket from the machine that immediately points me to kiosk 7 where a pretty lady has obviously been waiting for me since yesterday. I ask her to change some money and she smiles and points to her exchange rates. “Very bad” she smiles. She gets her phone out and gives me the name of another place round the corner. “Much better😁


“But I’d rather pay the extra and watch you and your pretty slim hands count out money for me..” says the voice in my head before the financial controller tells to stop being such a twat and to do as I’m told. Go to the suggested bank. Empty again. Straight to the exchange. Brush the dust off the teller. I cannot begin to think of the mind bending boredom sitting in a 3 foot square booth every day just to serve someone once every 6 months. How do they do it? Anyway, the rate is 6% better, and she’s got nice hands too👍. I have a thing about hands. Is that normal?

But why is this happening? Where are shit and happens? Perhaps they slept in. They really have been excelling themselves lately. A mate of mine swears he heard chuckles in his wild camp site before finding himself locked in the next morning in Austria😳. If they’ve been screaming about Europe they’re going to be tired. Hopefully their Russian visas have expired anyway, the little shits. I also get a love/hate message in the senders typical staccato style that nails my feet to the ground. Things like that help to keep me on the right side of sanity. Just.

I’m after a fridge magnet. There is an underground shop selling all sorts stuff from swimming awards to bullet bubble gum. In typical old soviet style there is a 10 to one staff to potential client ratio. I wonder if it’s a bit like that “if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound” question. “If there are no clients in the shop, do all they all turn to stone?” Keep them occupied. Keep them quiet. The old soviet maxim.

 
Go to the supermarket to get some provisions for the train. I went on the Trans Siberian from Vladivostok to Moscow in 2018. 7 days straight😳 3rd class. No food onboard😁. Had to buy food where I could from nanas secretly selling it out of bags on remote lonely platforms. Starvation. Hallucinations. Considered eating my own arms. Never again.

Go the station and wait. Should be fine. The notice board is all nice and obvious.


This first leg is 28 hours and around 1000 miles. Cost me £50. Again there is no restaurant car, just a hot water boiler, and again I’m travelling 3rd class in an ‘open sleeper’. I booked late so I got an upper bunk. There is nowhere to just sit unless you have a lower one, or unless someone invites you to sit with them. I’m across from two mums and their kids. A couple of them speak good English and want to talk. Nice people. Polite people. Smart people.
 


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